


Flip Your Fins and Wish For Me

by just_folie_a_deux_it



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: AU, Eventual Smut, Fluff, Little Mermaid AU, M/M, Mermaids, some violence maybe?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2018-11-02 16:43:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 36,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10948563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_folie_a_deux_it/pseuds/just_folie_a_deux_it
Summary: Basically a twist on the Little Mermaid where Bren is a mermaid and Ryan's the guy he falls for





	1. Chapter 1

Brendon knows he’s not supposed to be here. In fact, he’s been told so many times that he’s not supposed to be here, that he’s memorized the entire speech he gets from Pete and Patrick about how if they find out _one more time_ that he’s come up to the surface to human-watch, they’re going to tell his father. He’s gotten so good at it he can mouth along the words as he’s lectured. Pete always ends up trying not to laugh, but Patrick never finds it as amusing.

But it isn’t like he comes up to the surface that often, just once a week on what the humans call 'Saturday'. Gabe told him that the humans gave the days names, as if somehow that’s easier than just following along with the lunar cycle to tell time. Brendon finds it adorable all the same, and sometimes when he’s alone he recites the days of the week to himself just to giggle at how each one tastes on his tongue.

In any case, he only comes up on Saturdays because Saturdays are when _he_ comes, and despite his friends’ warnings about the dangers of humanity and the world above the water, Brendon can’t help but ignore each cautionary tale and swim up anyways. He’s got a little spot that he tends to watch from: a rock close to shore that’s always Sun-warmed and just big enough to keep him hidden from view. He loves getting to lay out in the Sun, loves how the beams that fall on his tail make the lavender scales sparkle and shimmer. He can sprawl out across the stone and observe the humans as they do their cute little human things, like put on strange white goo before they get into the water or sit underneath ominous, giant monster-looking things with long poles and big heads that fan out and cast large shadows.

But Brendon doesn’t come up just to human watch—well, he does, but he’s only really watching for one particular human.

Brendon had found the human on a hot Summer day when he’d been swimming just beneath the waves to catch some of the Sun’s rays. The water was clear and calm, warming him the closer he got to shore, but he hadn’t realized just how close he’d gotten until he heard singing. He’d poked his head up curiously, only his eyes above the water and wet hair dripping into his face. And there _he_ had been, sitting cross-legged on the sand and singing to himself. His hair was dark and in loose curls that framed his angular face and his long fingers were strumming some strange, curvy human-instrument that looked wooden with a large hole in the middle. Brendon, immediately captivated, had stayed for hours just to listen to the human sing his songs in a language Brendon didn’t understand a word of.

He’s got no idea what his human is called, but he’s been coming back each week since that first time. It’s been months now, and the man started to come with a few friends after a while, much to Brendon's dismay. They always come a little bit before the Sun is at its highest point in the sky, and usually stay until just before it sets. Not every Saturday either, but most of them. And the human will sit on the sand, pull out his weird, curvy human-instrument, and play songs. Brendon can never get enough, he’d spend forever on his rock listening to the man’s beautiful music if he could.

But today is different. Today, Brendon swims up from his home deep beneath the ocean—after carefully sneaking away from his father, and then past Pete and Patrick too—and slides up onto his rock to watch for the man. However, once he’s situated and looking, he notices that the man is not sitting in his spot and playing music, but is carrying a big red box down the dock, holding one side up while another man helps support him. The two are loading things into a boat while their friends pack up as well and bring more things aboard. One girl sets an armful of towels on a seat and then gently ruffles Brendon's human's hair, giggling and kissing his cheek.

Brendon frowns. His human never gets on a boat. None of them do, none of them have ever even _touched_ a boat as far as Brendon’s seen. And that girl with the light hair is new too, touching all over the man and pulling him up onto the pontoon. He’s never seen her or this boat and he doesn’t like any of it one bit.

He has to slide back down into the water once they start moving, the waves carrying the medium-sized vessel out to sea, right past his rock. Then, one girl starts the engine and they begin driving further out onto the ocean. Brendon slips down below the waves and follows them, staying a good distance back so he isn’t seen—or caught by the propeller that’s whirring dangerously in front of him, blasting bubbles back. He swims along, easily able to keep up with the slow pace they’ve set, and settles in once the boat comes to a stop a mile or so out.

He stays close enough that he can peek his head up and listen, but not so close that if anyone looked out they’d notice his dark head among the waves.

“Dude, get me a beer, would you?” A voice comes, distinctly male, but not his human’s.

Gabe’s been teaching him human lately, after a long bout of constant begging on Brendon’s part, so he can understand a bit of what’s being said. Though, he’s got no idea what a ‘beer’ is.

“You’re closer, get yourself one.” Another voice laughs, and this time Brendon perks. That’s his human.

“You’re such an asshole, Ryan.” The first voice whines.

Ryan. That’s his human’s name? Brendon dares to swim a little closer to the boat and peer up, catching sight of the man sitting sprawled out on a seat, one arm resting on the light-haired girl’s shoulders; the one who had kissed him before.

His hair that had seemed so dark before was now brightened by the rays of Sunshine beaming down on him and his skin seemed a tad darker, warmer than when Brendon had seen the first time. “Sure, whatever you say, Dan.” He grins back.

Brendon smiles to himself. So his name is Ryan, the man asking for the beer—Dan—had called him that. Brendon silently swears to himself that if he ever gets to even talk to Ryan, he’ll get the human all the beers he ever wanted, whatever they are.

After a moment there’s a shift and Brendon sees feet coming towards him so he quickly swims away, appearing a good few feet farther back to listen some more.

He learns that Ryan plays what is called a ‘guitar’ and that the girl who seems to be all over him is called ‘Zee’ and also that Ryan has no desire whatsoever to swim, much to Brendon’s disappointment. He seems content to stay on the boat and drink his ‘beers’ and play a little, and hardly even sing.

\--

A few hours in, Brendon can sense the beginnings of a storm and he fights the urge to swim back home. He can tell by the dark clouds coming in and the way the water churns around him that this is gonna be a bad one, and he could potentially get hurt if he doesn’t get away from the surface, but at this moment Ryan is laughing warmly at some joke Brendon didn’t understand; the sound is so beautiful that it makes Brendon’s gills ache. Ryan is between songs at the moment, but the more he drinks from the bottle that Brendon thinks is ‘beer’ the more he seems willing to play his instrument and sing. He’s just finished one about a walrus and an egg, and before that he’d done one about an octopus garden that Brendon had absolutely _adored_.

The clouds are beginning to spiral ominously in the sky, tinged green and lightly drizzling rain down onto the water. Brendon can feel it and he looks at the boat hopefully, waiting to see if the humans notice it. They don’t appear to be aware of any of the oncoming danger though, they’re all laughing and dancing and drinking their ‘beer’, even Ryan. Brendon desperately wants to swim up and alert them, but even if it wasn’t a terrible threat to his safety, he’s not entirely sure the humans could understand him. He swims wide circles around the boat anxiously, unsure of what to do.

“Hey, is it raining?”

Brendon looks over to see Ryan’s friend who wanted the ‘beer’—Dan, his name is Dan—reaching a hand out to feel the drops.

“Shit, we should get back.” Ryan frowns, standing and extracting himself from the tangle of limbs that he calls Zee.

Dan nods and a brunette who was sipping from a water bottle—the only one who seems to be acting half-sensible to Brendon—stands and goes to the wheel. She starts up the engine just as the rain begins to fall harder and Brendon bites his lip. If they don’t hurry, they’re really not going to make it.

He follows the boat again just to make sure they all arrive to the shore safely, but by the time they’ve made it about halfway the storm is morphing into a hurricane that’s furiously trying to beat them down. The waves are so big that they’re threatening to capsize the boat and the humans aboard are frantic as they scurry back and forth to try and simply stay upright. Brendon has no idea how to help, but there’s no chance for him to even try and think of a solution when a bolt of lightning comes down.

It’s big enough that despite hitting the boat almost dead-on, the aftershocks hit Brendon and he’s sent spinning beneath the water, dazed. He tries righting himself, shaking his head to clear his vision and through the dark water he catches sight of the boat—or pieces of the boat—floating around.

Quickly he scans the area around him, searching for Ryan—or anyone else really—when his eyes lock onto a dark figure slowly sinking down. He swims over, heart pounding in his chest and snatches the shirt of whomever he’s found, darting for the surface again. He has to cradle the human carefully so that their head is above the water, and when lightning flashes again he sees that he’s got Ryan in his arms and the other humans are swimming around, shouting each other’s names.

There’s no way he can bring Ryan back over to them, so instead he desperately swims for shore. The wind is whipping the trees back and forth, nearly bending them in half and the lifeguard tower has been knocked over and is in pieces across the beach. Brendon drags Ryan up onto the sand with a strained grunt.

“Please.” He whispers desperately, pushing the wet locks of hair out of his eyes.

Ryan isn’t moving, his eyes are closed and hair is clinging to his forehead where there’s a gash dripping red down his skin.

Brendon quickly leans down to press his ear to Ryan’s chest, listening carefully, desperately for the sound of a beating heart. A steady thump thuds in Brendon’s ear and he sighs in relief.

“Thank you, thank you.” He whispers, resting his forehead against Ryan’s.

He hears shouting and looks up. There’s flashing lights in the trees and sirens wailing and he knows that this means he needs to disappear, and fast. He debates whether Ryan will be alright, but quickly determines the humans coming this way will help him. Brendon frantically wriggles back into the water and darts beneath the angry waves, swimming back to the spot where the boat had been struck. Already jet skis are speeding that way and once Brendon knows that the other humans will survive as well he dives down and heads for home.

He knows his father is going to be furious once he finds out where Brendon was—and he will find out, because all merfolk are supposed to stay in the citadel when there’s a hurricane—but he can’t bring himself to regret what he did. If he hadn’t gone to the surface, Ryan would be dead.

The deeper he goes the calmer the water gets, and when Brendon can see the outline of his city, he can’t help but glance back up at the surface longingly. He belongs up there, not down below the waves where there’s no Sun or sky or ‘beer’. He belongs where those things are, where Ryan is. And he’ll be damned if he doesn’t find a way to get up there sooner or later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also I know that Z-Berg's name isn't spelled 'Zee' but I figured that Brendon wouldn't really know the human alphabet and would phonetically sound things out in his head so


	2. Chapter 2

As Brendon reaches the city, the sinking feeling in his stomach grows heavier. It feels as if he’s swimming towards his imminent doom as he heads for the castle. All that awaits him there is his father’s rage at his disappearance, and most likely another lecture from Pete and Patrick. The palace before him seems foreboding and dangerous as he nears it, all tall, thin spires and large shadows; he wishes he could just turn around and swim back to Ryan.

As he reaches the castle, Brendon catches sight of a familiar strawberry-blonde head and a mop of dark hair rushing towards him. He can tell from their faces he’s in a world of trouble, but gives a nervous smile anyways.

“Hey, what’s going on?” He tries as Pete and Patrick slow to a stop in front of him.

Patrick glares. “What’s going on? _What’s going on?_ You’ve been gone for hours and everyone’s been looking for you, that’s ‘ _what’s going on_ ’!” He cries. “You went up to the surface again, didn’t you?” He asks, crossing his arms. His dark blue tail is swishing back and forth in circles, creating little clouds of sand that erupt beneath him. It’s a tell-tale sign that Patrick is not only anxious but in a dangerously bad mood. He may be smaller than Brendon, but he’s older and his fury isn’t something to be taken lightly.

“What? The-? No, no way.” Brendon laughs, waving a hand. “Why would I even do that?”

Pete arches a brow. “Because you’re obsessed with a human.” He says flatly.

Brendon can feel his face heating up, but he shakes his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He lies, voice cracking. His voice always gets higher when he’s trying to get away with something, and right now he sounds like a child who just got punched in the gut.

“Do you think we’re stupid!?” Patrick cries, bristling. “Gabe _saw_ you chase after their boat! A _boat_ , Brendon! Do you know what boats have?”

Stupid Gabe, always telling on him.

Brendon sighs softly. “Boats have harp-”

“Boats have harpoon guns! And nets! And hooks, Brendon, _hooks_! ” Patrick is going red in the face and Brendon knows this isn’t a good sign. Usually he starts getting red around the ‘Do you want to be kidnapped and put on display like some animal!?’ part, but this is dangerously early for him to be changing colors.

“But Ryan isn’t like that!” Brendon protests. “He would never hurt me!”

“You learned his _name_?” Patrick blinks, face going from splotchy red to deathly pale. “Did you _talk to him_?” He whispers.

“No! No, I didn’t talk to him, I just hung around their boat a little bit and listened and stuff. I heard his friend call him Ryan, that’s all. And nobody saw me.” Brendon adds quickly. He wishes that he could have talked to Ryan though, maybe before the hurricane got going and smashed their boat to pieces.

“Your dad’s been looking for you for like, the past hour, he’s really mad.” Pete says, frowning. His own dark purple tail is beginning to swish nervously at the mention of the king. “He knows something’s up and he keeps interrogating us.”

“You didn’t tell hi-”

“Of course we didn’t tell him, Bren. Have we ever told him?” Patrick sighs, looking defeated and worn. “But we’re worried.” His eyes are pleading, gazing into Brendon’s with a desperate kind of need that’s altogether new. “You keep going up there and saying that everything is okay and safe, but you’ve never even met this human. How do you know that he wouldn’t hurt you? How do you know that the second he saw you– saw what you are– that he wouldn’t just snatch you up and sell you?”

Brendon flushes angrily, fists clenching. “I just–I just know, okay? I’ve been watching him for months, he isn’t like that!”

He’s seen Ryan help little baby humans when they’re stumbling across the sand, guiding them back to their parents carefully. He’s watched as Ryan scooped up his friends when they got strange and tripped all over themselves, kissing each other and yelling and sometimes crying about things that didn’t make sense, and Ryan just carried them off the beach as he pushed water bottles into their hands. He’s even seen Ryan appear late at night, all on his own and secretly, gently and very carefully nudge baby sea turtles towards the ocean. Ryan would never hurt him.

Pete and Patrick exchange a glance that says many things Brendon can’t read. He feels left out and maybe a little bit betrayed by their judgment, even if he knows they’re only trying to look out for him.

“You should probably go find your dad, Bren.” Pete says finally, reaching out to clasp a hand on Brendon’s shoulder. “We’ll see you later tonight, okay?”

Brendon nods, sighing softly. “Yeah, okay. If I survive.” He mutters, swimming past Pete and Patrick and going towards the throne room.

As king of the merfolk, his father tended to be a little overprotective of Brendon. Because he was the youngest, Brendon was the most vulnerable and therefore most likely to be attacked by enemies of the kingdom. However, after Brendon’s mother died, overprotective had turned into absolutely tyrannical and Brendon’s father wanted to keep his son under his close supervision at all times. Unless someone trusted by the king was around–Pete and Patrick, or one of the guards–Brendon was to stay in the castle and not even think about leaving, or even think about thinking about leaving. Of course, all that meant was that Brendon had to be extra careful when sneaking out. He’d never been caught in the act of doing so, but his absence was always noted sooner or later and despite the hundreds of arguments that ensued, it seemed like his father would never understand that Brendon couldn’t live like a prisoner forever.

As he swims through the archway and into the elegant throne room, Brendon makes sure to keep his head ducked and tail swishing pathetically as he reaches his father. It’s better to appear remorseful than rebellious at this point.

At first, there's only silence.

Then, “Are you going to tell me where you’ve been?” The king asks from his seat. His voice is eerily calm as Brendon watches his father lean back casually in the throne, one hand gently gripping his trident and the other resting on one arm of the chair.

“I was just out in the city, I-uh, wanted to go to the-to the market.” Brendon stutters, not meeting his father’s eye.

“Is that so?” The king murmurs. His deep green tail seems to swish pensively, but Brendon knows that only means he’s considering just how to punish his son. The longer he stays calm, the worse Brendon’s going to get it.

Brendon just nods, still not looking up. He can just see the bottom of the throne, sparkling and inlaid with pearls and shells.

“How strange, I distinctly remember telling you the _last time_ you disappeared that you weren’t to even look outside of this castle without having an appointed chaperone with you.”

Brendon finally looks up, swallowing nervously. His gills are beginning to flare anxiously. “But father, I-”

“You continue to disobey and disrespect me!” Brendon’s father shouts, sitting up straighter and slamming the trident down. “Do you not understand the danger you are constantly in? Do you want to end up like your mother!?” He shouts.

Brendon glares. That's all it takes for him to lose it. “At least she lived while she could!” He seethes. “She wasn’t just trapped here like some-like some _prisoner_! She wasn’t miserable every day stuck here with _you_!”

“I am _protecting_ you!” The king growls. “I will not have you constantly disappearing and disregarding my explicit orders. I am your father and I am the king, you will _obey_ me, Brendon!”

Brendon grits his teeth, fists clenching. “I am not a child, I will not just stay here day in and day out living in fear like you do! You don’t even know what’s out there! There are so many amazing things to discover, and the humans-”

“ _Humans_?!” Brendon’s father booms.

Brendon flinches and takes a stumbling flutter back. He’s made a grave mistake.

“Have you been going to the surface? Is that where you’ve been vanishing off to?” The king shouts, rising from the throne and towering over Brendon.

“I–I didn’t, that’s not-” Brendon can’t even think of a good lie at this point, his father has never looked so absolutely terrifying; there's murder in his eyes.

“You really do want to end up like your mother, don’t you?! Well I won’t have it! I will not let those filthy landwalkers take anything else from me!”

Brendon tries to swim back away from his father, but the king is much bigger and much faster as he reaches out and grabs his son by the arm. “That’s it, you’re officially not to leave this castle until I see fit.” He growls. “I’m locking you in the dungeons and you can come out when you decide that you’re going to listen to me.”

Brendon struggles against his father’s grip, but it’s like iron, unyielding, and there’s nothing he can do as he’s dragged down to the cells and tossed into one. “You don’t understand!” He cries.

“I understand enough!” Brendon’s father shouts. “You’re staying here until you’re a thousand years old if that’s what it takes!” He slams the gate shut and locks it with a glare.

Brendon grips the seaweed-laden bars and opens his mouth to argue, but his father just swims away without another word.

\--

It isn’t until later that night that Brendon sees anyone else. It’s much darker now that the Sun has set and no light can reach the ocean floor, but there’s a little illumination from bioluminescent algae that’s collected on the walls. Murky twin shadows appear and he looks up from his place in the corner of his cell.

“You must have really pissed him off this time.” Pete murmurs.

Brendon sighs softly and pushes himself up, swimming to the bars that have him locked in. “He found out that I was going to see Ryan.” He murmurs.

“He what?” Patrick gasps. He swims forward, gripping the bars tight in his hands. “What happened? What did he say? What did _you_ say?”

Brendon just shakes his head. “I got all worked up and I accidentally mentioned the humans.” He mumbles, resting his forehead on one of the cool steel bars keeping him caged in.

“Aw, Brendon.” Pete sighs.

“I know, I know. I didn’t mean to, it just came out! He was yelling at me and talking about my mom again and it just happened.” Brendon’s hand comes to grip the bars, resting just above Patrick’s. “You guys have to get me out of here.” He pleads, looking up at his friends.

Patrick frowns. “Bren, your dad is really angry. He nearly executed someone just for stealing from the marketplace.”

“I can’t stay in here forever, Patrick.” Brendon cries. “He plans on keeping me here until I wither away into nothing!”

“Brend-”

“Please.” Brendon whispers.

“We’ll talk to him.” Pete sighs. “He likes Patrick at least, maybe he’ll listen. But you gotta stop with the surface stuff, no more humans, no more of this ‘Ryan’.” He says firmly. “We can’t keep saving you from him– eventually he really will just lock you away in here forever.”

Brendon’s throat feels tight and he wants to scream. It isn’t fair, none of this is any fair. His father will never understand and try as they might, neither will his friends. He just nods, not saying a word.

“It isn’t so bad down here, Brendon. Not really, right?” Patrick murmurs, taking Brendon’s hand in his own.

Brendon remains silent, pulling away and swimming back to the dark little corner he’d been in before. He doesn’t care what it takes, not anymore. He’s getting to the surface and he’s staying there, one way or another.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s after a great deal of begging and many reassurances on Pete and Patrick’s part that he will never _ever_ leave the castle again by himself that Brendon is let out of the dungeons the next morning. The first thing he does once he’s freed is swim up into the main hall to search for his friends so he can thank them, but all he finds is his father staring stone-faced out one of the many large windows that line the area's walls instead. The king turns as he notices Brendon, glaring at his son with an intensity that makes Brendon’s insides turn cold. The shadows from the Sun filtering through the water make his father’s face look sharp and menacing, and the king’s icy gaze gives Brendon the impression he’s now worth less to his father than the bottom-feeding krill that he and his friends used to catch to keep as pets when they were little. After a moment of silence, the king just shakes his head and swims away without a word.

Brendon sighs softly, wrapping his arms around his middle and curling in on himself. His bottom lip quivers and he feels a hard lump beginning to form in his throat, but there’s a sudden gleeful shout from around the corner and he turns around, quickly trying to compose himself.

“Brendon! You got out!” Pete cries, rushing over with Patrick close behind.

“Are you okay?” Patrick asks quickly, clasping Brendon’s face in his hands. “When did you—” He pauses abruptly, eyes searching. “Brendon, what’s wrong?”

It takes a moment for Brendon to find the words and force them out of his mouth; they taste bitter and wrong.

“My father hates me,” He whispers.

Pete frowns. “Brendon, he’s just angry right now, he doesn’t ha—”

“ _Yes he does!_ ”

Patrick starts and swims back a little, looking at Pete with wide eyes.

Brendon shakes his head. “You didn’t see the way he _looked_ at me. Like I was _nothing_.”

“He’s just mad, Bren, he’ll get over it. You know how he is,” Pete soothes.

Patrick nods. “It’ll just take some time, you’ll have to prove to him you’re really over all of this ‘going-to-the-surface’ stuff. He’ll forgive you eventually, it’ll be okay.”

“No it won’t!” Brendon protests. “It won’t be, not while I’m living down here. I’m trapped here like some sort of _hostage_ , always being watched and kept inside. I can’t prove anything to him because I _hate it here_!”

“Brendon…” Pete sighs, shaking his head.

Brendon pushes his hands through his hair, tugging at the strands with a soft noise of defeat. He closes his eyes and lets out the breath he hadn’t noticed he’d been holding, visibly deflating.

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Pete murmurs, swimming over and gently pulling Brendon’s hands down into his own, squeezing them lightly.

“I...I had an idea,” Brendon begins, biting his lip and toying with the flesh between his teeth. He’s careful not to meet either of his friends’ eyes. “But I would need your help.”

Patrick frowns, expression switching from sympathetic and concerned to cautiously skeptical. “Our help with what, exactly?”

“I need to see Gabe,” Brendon says, eyes flicking upwards for a moment as he pulls away from Pete, wringing his hands uncomfortably.

Patrick’s frown deepens and his tail begins to swish agitatedly, creating miniature clouds of sand that obscure his fin. “Gabe? What do you need Gabe for?”

Brendon glances at Pete like maybe he’ll chime in and back him up. “I think he could help me.”

“Brendon, you literally _just_ got out of the dungeons a few _minutes_ ago for trying to see humans and you want to go to the one merperson who’s closest to them?”

“I need to talk to him, he’s the only one I can think of who’s going to know what to do,” Brendon says, looking at his friends desperately. This is his one chance, if his friends won't help him he'll be stuck under the sea forever.

“Brendon what kind of help do you need?” Patrick looks uneasy, like he’s afraid to know the answer. His eyes flick to Pete briefly and Brendon can see his gills flaring apprehensively.

“I want to be human,” Brendon whispers. The words come out small and scared and just barely audible.

Patrick’s head whips around to look back at Brendon, horror in his eyes, and even Pete looks taken aback.

“You want to _what_?!” Patrick shouts, making both Brendon and Pete jerk back. His face is already an alarming shade of crimson Brendon’s never even seen before.

“Patrick, wait, let’s just listen to him,” Pete tries, swimming forward and resting one hand on the merman’s arm.

“I am listening!” Patrick snaps. “He wants to be one of those _monsters_! I’ve had enough of this surface stuff! Say it is even possible, you want to let him go and transform himself into one of _them_? You’ve seen what they’ve done to the ocean– what they’ve done to anything that lives in it! They’re absolute savages to anyone and anything that isn’t like them-even each other, and you want to just let Brendon go and be one of them?”

Pete just crosses his arms, standing firm. “You want him to stay here forever then?” He asks cooly.

“At least here he’d be safe!” Patrick shouts. “Here we could watch him, here he could be taken care of, here he’d be—”

“Absolutely miserable,” Pete says softly, gesturing to where Brendon is staring down at the sand, face broken and downcast, his dark hair swirling around his eyes.

Patrick’s face switches from livid to startled as he stares at the younger merman and bites his lip. He looks back to Pete for a moment, unsure, before he sighs. “Absolutely miserable,” he echoes. He sighs, a small stream of bubbles leaving his lips and floating upward. “Alright,” he murmurs.

Brendon looks up, blinking in surprise.

“Alright, we’ll help you.” Patrick says, pushing a hand through his strawberry-blonde hair, causing the locks to swirl and twist around his head. “But does it have to be Gabe?”

“Gabe’s the only one who’s traveled all seven seas and if anyone knows how to change a merman into a human, it’s gonna be him,” Pete says. “I think we should give it a shot.”

Brendon blinks and a smile creeps across his face.

“But what about the king? He said Brendon couldn’t leave, not _ever_ ,” Patrick points out.

Pete grins. “No, he said Brendon couldn’t leave _alone_ ,” he says smugly. “We’ll go with him, and then he won’t be alone, will he?”

Brendon looks between each of his friends for a moment before giving a tiny shout of excitement and launching himself forward. He wraps his arms around them both and squeezes tight. “Thank you!” He breathes. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! You’re the best I love you so much!”

Pete laughs. “Took you long enough to figure it out.”

Patrick just gives him a wry smile and shakes his head. “Let’s just go, come on.”

\---

Brendon’s excitement is impossible to contain. Exiting the castle is much easier with Pete and Patrick next to him; there’s no need for hiding in shadows or dodging guards, they can just go right out the front gate. As they swim, he repeatedly darts ahead of his friends only to be quickly shouted at to slow down and wait up. His lilac tail wiggles eagerly in anticipation even as he waits, and it’s only moments before he’s jetting off again and the cycle repeats.

“Brendon, for the last time, slow _down_!” Patrick cries.

Brendon forces himself to reduce his speed and comes to a reluctant stop as he flushes and turns to wait again. “Sorry, sorry!” He calls with a sheepish grin, pushing a hand through the locks of hair floating around his face.

“Just don’t go so fast, we can’t keep up,” Patrick chides. “It’s okay, we’ll get there eventually.”

Brendon nods, but soon enough he’s rushing off again. They’re so close that when Patrick calls for him to wait again, he just shoots up for the surface with a delighted laugh. As his head pops up out of the water with a small splash, Brendon shoves wet hair out of his face and looks around.

“Well, well isn’t this a nice surprise!”

Brendon grins wide and looks up at the merman sunbathing above him. “Gabe!”

The older merman is stretched out across a rock, his golden tail shimmering in the Sun. His naturally dark skin seems to glow in the light and as he looks down at Brendon, his chestnut curls fall across his forehead.

“Where have you been, little guppy?” Gabe asks. “It’s been awhile since I’ve seen your pretty face.”

Brendon feels his cheeks begin to heat up as he opens his mouth to reply when Patrick surfaces with an exasperated gasp.

“Brendon, if you could just hold your seahorses for two seconds so we could catch up—” He starts.

“And Patrick, an even bigger surprise,” Gabe notes, sounding a little shocked but not necessarily displeased.

“Gabriel,” Patrick mumbles, not looking the other merman in the eye.

“So does this mean you also brought—”

“I see how it is!” Pete cries as he pushes up through the waves with a large splash that lightly sprinkles water on everybody. “You spend the whole time yelling ‘wait, wait’ to Brendon, but as soon as we get here, you just leave me behind! Is that how this works, Patrick?”

“Pete,” Gabe purrs, shifting so he can wrap his glittering tail around the stone and roll onto his stomach, chin resting on his folded arms as he looks down at the trio.

“Hey, Gabe,” Pete smiles.

“What brings you three to my humble little rock, hm? You want to learn human with Brendon?” The merman asks curiously. His voice carries a foreign accent that Brendon assumes is found on every tongue in the warmer waters Gabe originates from, but he’s never heard it from anyone else and it mesmerizes him every time Gabe speaks.

“As if,” Patrick grumbles.

“We’re here because I need your help,” Brendon explains, swimming forward and glancing down at the water as he braces himself for the next part. “I was hoping that you’d know something about being able to turn me human.”

Surprise flits across Gabe’s face, his eyes growing wide as he pushes up just slightly onto his elbows. “Turn you human? Why on earth would you want to do that?” He asks. “Not that man you watch?” He frowns.

“No!” Brendon protests.

Gabe arches a knowing brow and Brendon flushes and ducks his head.

“Well, not just him,” he amends. “I just can’t do this anymore, my father won’t let me out of his sight and now he absolutely hates me, and nobody understands me down there, I just don’t _belong_.” It all comes out in a rush and Brendon bites his tongue to stop himself from saying any more.

Gabe frowns as he watches Brendon, one hand swishing lazily in the water. He’s quiet for a long while, deep brown eyes sparkling thoughtfully. “You never really have belonged down there, have you?” He murmurs finally. “Not for as long as I’ve known you at least.”

Brendon shakes his head. “I want to be human! I want to be able to walk and dance and talk to them,” he pleads.

Gabe looks from Brendon over to Pete and Patrick. “And you two are okay with this?”

“We came here didn’t we?” Patrick mutters.

“We just want him to be happy. What’s the use of keeping him safe in the castle if he hates every moment of his life?” Pete murmurs.

Gabe nods and gives a hint of a smile. “You’re a good friend, Pete.”

Patrick rolls his eyes and glowers, and Brendon can feel his tail swishing beneath the waves, annoyed and antsy.

“Unfortunately, I can’t turn you human,” Gabe says, turning back to Brendon.

“Oh.” Brendon sighs and nods. Disappointment fills his chest and it’s so heavy he thinks he may just sink down to the ocean floor and stay there for the rest of eternity, like a wrecked ship that never got retrieved.

“But, I’ve heard of someone who can.”

“You have?” Brendon breathes, looking up at Gabe with wide, hopeful eyes.

“Who?” Patrick asks, frowning skeptically.

“A sea witch,” Gabe murmurs.

There’s a sharp intake of breath, but Brendon’s not sure if it’s from Pete or Patrick. Even Gabe looks uneasy as he begins to speak.

“They call him William, he lives a good distance from your city, maybe a day’s swim. If anyone could turn you human, it would be him,” Gabe says carefully.

“That’s perfect!” Brendon cries.

“A sea witch?” Patrick’s frown deepens. “Just what do you know about this sea witch?” He asks, looking up at the merman above them.

Gabe sighs, shaking his head. “Unfortunately, not much. Anywhere I’ve gone, no one wants to talk about him. He was banished from his own city years ago and hasn’t been seen since. I’ve heard though, that he’s willing to grant wishes for the right price.”

Brendon’s face lights up. “I’ve got to go see him! Guys, we have to go, we have to go _now_.” He turns to Pete and Patrick.

“Bren, I don’t know,” Pete says, looking unsure.

“He’s my only chance, we have to go.” Brendon says fervently.

“If you do go,” Gabe says, leaning down so he can clasp a hand on Brendon’s shoulder. “You _must_ be on guard. There are many legends of those who have gone to him for help and never returned. Brendon, _promise_ me that you’ll be careful.” Gabe’s eyes are dark and serious in a way Brendon’s never seen before.

“I promise,” Brendon whispers, slightly intimidated from Gabe’s sudden intensity.

Pete shifts in the water, looking up at Gabe. “So, where does this sea witch live then?” He asks.

“North from here, in a cave surrounded by coral that doesn’t grow and where no fish swim,” Gabe murmurs, looking out onto the horizon at the setting Sun. “When the water grows cold and you find the place where shark and man lay together, you’re close.”

“Thank you,” Brendon says quietly, reaching up so he can squeeze Gabe’s hand.

Patrick looks at Brendon like he wants to argue that they shouldn’t go, but he stays silent and simply sighs.

“We should go now, then,” Brendon says, turning to look at Pete and Patrick.

“Tomorrow.” Pete shakes his head. “We’ve been swimming all day, we need rest.”

Brendon wants to protest, but he’s already asked far too much of his friends and the fact that they’re willing to come with him to find the sea witch is enough to make his chest pang with affection. He nods. “Tomorrow,” he agrees.

“You can stay with me for the night,” Gabe offers, sliding down from his rock and slipping into the water gracefully. “I have a little place not far from here.”

“That would be great,” Pete smiles, following after the merman as he dives beneath the waves.

Brendon is about to go after them when Patrick catches his arm, a solemn look on his face.

“Listen, if-if this is too dangerous-if I think you’re going to get hurt—” Patrick starts. “I promised I’d see this through with you, but not at the cost of your life.”

Brendon blinks, staring at his friend for a moment as the water begins to grow darker with the setting Sun. Patrick’s skin is pale compared to the waves lapping around them and he looks almost like the ghosts Gabe says that humans believe in.

“Patrick, I—” Brendon just shakes his head, staring into Patrick’s azure eyes for a long moment. “Thank you,” he says finally, swimming forward to wrap his arms around his friend before they both dive down to catch up with Pete and Gabe.

Even as they reach the cove Gabe has set up, Brendon’s mind is oceans away. He can’t even focus enough to avoid bumping into Patrick every few seconds as they swim; his thoughts reside with the sea witch William, and the all too real possibility of being human. It’s only just out of his reach now, and by tomorrow he could be walking on the sand next to Ryan like a real person. It feels as if it’ll be impossible to sleep, but between Gabe telling hushed stories of his adventures across the seas and Patrick’s hand idly pushing through his hair, Brendon’s drifting off before he even knows what’s happening.


	4. Chapter 4

The Moon is only just settling below the horizon when Brendon wakes. As his eyes flutter open and he looks around, he can see the Sun pushing its way through the water as it makes its ascent into the sky; the stone walls of the cave that they stayed in the night before sparkle and glimmer around them in the early morning light. The shadows cast across his sleeping friends are multicolored–Gabe’s tail twitches softly and gleams in a rose-hued glow, Patrick’s light-green tinted hair swirls around his face with the soft undercurrents, and Pete is bathed in a deep blue color from his place curled in the corner. Brendon hates even the thought of waking them, but the sea witch awaits, and so does Ryan above them.

He swims quietly over to Patrick first. His friend is sleeping with one arm beneath his head and the other resting on his stomach; he looks, for once, easy and at peace. Carefully, Brendon reaches down and places a hand on Patrick’s shoulder, shaking him lightly.

Patrick’s eyes open almost immediately and he looks up at Brendon, staying quiet for a moment before giving a small, resigned sigh and nodding. “Go wake up Pete.” He murmurs, sitting up and stretching, his cobalt tail twisting and fluttering as he does.

Brendon flashes the older merman a grateful smile before making his way over to where Pete is curled on his side, his tail wrapped around himself and arms tucked against his chest. He tries gently shaking Pete first, but all he gets is a soft snore and a single twitch of Pete’s fin in return.

“Pete.” He whispers, jostling the merman a little harder. “Pete, wake up, it’s time to go.”

Pete groans and only curls further in on himself, rolling over so his back is to Brendon.

“Pete, _please_.” Brendon tries, shaking Pete even harder now. “We’ve got to go see the sea witch, remember? So I can be human?”

There’s silence for just a moment, and then a heavy sigh as Pete’s tail unfurls and he sits up. “Alright, alright, I’m coming.” He mutters. “Don’t get your fins in a knot.”

Brendon nods, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of Pete’s head. “Thank you.” He whispers before swimming over to the spot where Gabe is already beginning to wake—completely missing the blush that spreads over Pete’s cheeks.

“What’s going on?” Gabe murmurs, pushing himself up and rubbing his eyes.

“We’re leaving, we’ve got to go find the sea witch.” Brendon says softly. “Thank you for letting us stay with you.” He adds with a small smile.

Gabe nods, a sleepy grin sneaking across his face. “Sure, guppy. Anytime.”

“Come on, Brendon, if we’re gonna do this we need to leave now.” Patrick calls from just outside the cave. Pete is beside him, leaned against one wall and looking as if he might fall asleep right there swimming in place.

Brendon nods and turns back to Gabe. “I’ll see you again, won’t I?” This can’t the last time he’ll see Gabe; the thought makes his chest twinge painfully and he has to stop himself from begging his friend to come with them.

“I have no doubt, don’t you worry your pretty little head.” Gabe assures, ruffling Brendon’s hair. “Go on then,” He murmurs, nudging Brendon towards Pete and Patrick. “Go find the sea witch, but remember, be _careful_.”

“I will.” Brendon promises, turning to quickly throw his arms around Gabe before darting for his friends. “And thank you for everything!” He calls, twisting around to wave goodbye.

As the three swim away, Brendon looks back just once more to see Gabe smiling at him. The older merman lifts his hand in a small wave, chestnut locks fluttering around his eyes and golden tail swishing just slightly. Brendon fights the urge to rush back and hug him one more time, instead forcing himself to turn and catch up with Pete and Patrick. He doesn’t look back again, but somehow he still feels when Gabe is no longer behind them.

\---

It becomes instantly apparent the moment they begin to approach the sea witch’s domain. The water grows cold enough to make Brendon’s gills cramp and causes him to shiver violently. The cold, however, isn’t the only sign that they’re not far from William’s lair; the water around them isn’t the normal, clear blue that Brendon is used to, but instead is grayish and murky, casting a dull hue around everything else. There’s no color to be seen, not even on Pete or Patrick’s scales; the usual, sparkling pigments that Brendon is used to are now dreary and washed out. The cold lack of color puts him on edge, but still he swims forward. This is all so he can finally be human, so he can be with Ryan, so he can be _happy_.

Suddenly, Pete and Patrick come to a stop in front of him, and Brendon is just able to stop himself from crashing into them both.

“What is it?” He asks. “Are we here?”

Pete shakes his head, and Brendon notices that his eyes are wide as he stares in shock at something Brendon can’t see on the bleached white sand blanketing the sea floor.

“What?” Brendon tries again, attempting to looked over their shoulders. “What is it?” He pushes between his friends and freezes.

Half-buried in the sand is a partially eroded skull—obviously human—grinning up at Brendon with an empty stare. It’s not alone, though; ahead, the sea floor is littered with little white chunks poking out of the sand like broken shells, contrasting brightly against the muted grey of their surroundings. It makes his stomach churn when he looks up to see an entire shark carcass floating above a small pile of bones that Brendon’s not sure all belong to the same person.

“We should turn around.” Patrick says, his voice unnaturally loud in the dead quiet of their surroundings. It makes Brendon jerk in surprise at the sudden noise.

“Turn around?” He frowns, panic settling in his chest almost immediately and making his heart clench. “We can’t turn around, please, we’re so close!” He darts over to Patrick, taking his friend’s hands in his own and squeezing them desperately. It’s as if he’s right in front of the possibility of a human life—barely on the outside looking in, just able to brush it with his fingertips; if he just reaches out a little further he’ll have it in his grasp, but he can’t do that without his friends’ help.

“Brendon, be reasonable.” Pete pleads. “Look around us.” His voice is hushed and sounds almost scared.

Brendon bites down hard on his bottom lip, toying with it as he nods. “I know.” He whispers. “I know I’m asking a lot, I _know_ , but this is my only chance. Please, I swear if this doesn’t work I’ll let it go. I’ll never bring up being human, or seeing Ryan, or any of it ever again.” He means it too, he can’t even begin to imagine getting another chance like this and then losing it all over again, losing _Ryan_ all over again. If this doesn’t work, it’s over.

Patrick looks like he’s about to argue further that they should just give up and go home, but suddenly the sound of laughter echoes around them and the three dart towards each other, huddling together in a cluster.

“Well, well, well. Look what we have here...”

Brendon turns and gasps softly; coming towards them are two mermaids, both grinning wickedly as they approach the group.

“Are you lost?” One asks, tilting her head and grinning even wider. Her teeth are sharp and broken, glinting in her mouth.

“Sounds like the little baby one wants to be a human.” The other murmurs, swimming in a large circle around the group. She has short dark hair that swirls around her face and a tail that perhaps could have been green once, but has since dulled to a muddy brownish grey.

“A human? But who in this big, wide ocean could turn a merman into a human?” The first mermaid asks with a smirk, her blonde hair fluttering near Brendon’s face and making him wrinkle his nose. Her tail brushes against his and he looks down to see dingy pink scales, and a few spots where there’s only bare, scabbed flesh.

Brendon swallows nervously, feeling his aching gills flare. The water is too cold, it hurts for him to breathe, and these mermaids are swimming around them like hungry sharks who just caught the scent of fresh blood. His hands sneak down to capture Pete and Patrick’s, who squeeze back lightly.

“We know someone, don’t we, Vicky?” The blonde mermaid stops her predatory circling and glances up at her companion with a faux-innocent expression.

“We do, we do.” The other mermaid—Vicky—nods, swimming over and looking at Brendon, their faces far too close. Her nose almost touches his as she levels her stare, and he notices that one of her eyes is a bright amber color that almost glows gold while the other is a flat brown. “Do you want to be a human, child?” She asks.

Brendon can feel the words caught in his throat, almost suffocating him and he thinks if his gills flare any harder he may just pass out, but he nods. “Ve-very badly,” She glares at him, upper lip lifting in a slight snarl that makes her teeth look even more dangerous now that they’re so close to him. “Miss.” He adds, his voice almost a whisper.

“Brendon…” Patrick begins, moving forward as if to shield him, but the two mermaids just rush forward and take Brendon’s wrists in their hands and tug him away.

“Then come on, angelfish, don’t be scared.” The blonde mermaid coos; Brendon notes that she too has one golden eye.

“Are—are you taking me to William?” He asks, wriggling just slightly to try and loosen the mermaids’ grasps on his arms; their ragged, unkempt nails are biting into his skin.

“Master’s reputation precedes him it seems, Greta.” Vicky purrs, pulling Brendon along.

“Wait, wait for us!”

Brendon’s head twists around and he can just barely make out Pete and Patrick rushing to catch up through the murky water.

“Better keep up, you sea snails!” Greta calls, giving a mean laugh as she speeds up, yanking Brendon’s arm.

With no warning, the mermaid quickly dives towards the sea floor, dragging Brendon down with her as they plunge into a hole of complete darkness .

“Right this way, little starfish.” He hears Vicky call, and he can only follow her due to the single glowing eye he sees moving ahead of him.

“Where are we?” Brendon hears Pete ask. He can hear the fear in his friend’s voice and wishes he could reach back to reassure the merman, but he’s afraid if he makes one wrong move he’ll be left alone in this strange dark tunnel forever.

“Don’t you worry, we’re right where we’re supposed to be.” Greta says, and Brendon can feel her hands pushing against his shoulders to urge him on.

Swimming through the pitch black passageway, Brendon has to avoid hot bursts of steam that curl beneath him, jetting up from below. If he reaches out, he can rest his hand on the curve of the walls around them—they’re slimy and he feels the bump of barnacles beneath his fingers. After a moment, he can make out dim lights ahead and Vicky jerks him forward.

“Master,” Greta singsongs. “We’re back!”

As they swim forward, Brendon's eyes begin to adjust and he sees that they’re in a fairly large cave. Shelves and cubby holes fill the walls surrounding them, and in the center of it all is a large black cauldron that emits a distinctly sour smell.

There’s movement in the shadows and Brendon turns to see something crawling from the dark towards them.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” A voice hums.

Slowly, tentacles unfurl from the shadows and splay out as a man with the lower half of an octopus creeps towards Brendon. His skin is a deathly pale that Brendon’s never even seen before–not like the greyish hue of the two mermaids, but almost purplish. Dark brown locks of hair swirl around his head and his eyes gleam wickedly as he looks Brendon up and down.

“A little prince, I see. What are you doing here, princeling, have you lost your way?” He chuckles.

Brendon shakes his head quickly, opening his mouth to reply when Patrick swims forward.

“Are you the sea witch, William?” He asks.

Both Greta and Vicky bare their teeth and hiss at Patrick, but with a raise of his hand their master quiets them.

“Now, now let’s remember our manners.” William chides, arching a brow. “Whether I am or not really isn’t any of your concern.” He adds, toying lightly with a pendant around his neck: a golden shell dangling on a thin piece of rope. “What _is_ your concern,” He says, eyes flicking back to Brendon with a smile. “Is that I know what you want, and I can give it to you.”

Brendon’s eyes light up and not even Patrick’s hand on his shoulder can stop him from rushing forward. “You can turn me human?” He breathes.

William smirks and pushes a hand through Brendon’s hair, tilting his head. “Of course I can, little prince. I love helping merpeople like you.” He hums. “For a price.”

“What kind of price are we talking?” Pete asks, swimming forward, but staying just behind Patrick as the two mermaids hiss at him too.

William’s eyes flash as he looks over at Pete and Patrick, but quickly his face morphs into one of compassion as he turns back to Brendon. “Oh, nothing of importance.” He says softly. “Tell me, you poor, unfortunate soul,” He murmurs, gazing back down at Brendon and taking the merman’s face into one hand; his skin is like ice against Brendon’s, it feels like its leaching every bit of warmth from his body. “You want to be human? How bad— what would you do for it?”

Brendon doesn’t think to ask how William knows he’s a prince or how he knew that Brendon wanted to be human, he just nods as best he can with the grasp on his chin. “Anything.” He whispers finally, fists clenching.

“So be it.” William nods with a wide smirk, turning away and making his way towards a small shelf of glass bottles and jars. “I shall concoct a spell that will turn you human.”

“And what about your price?” Patrick asks, brow furrowed and a frown etched deep into his features.

William turns, ignoring him as he begins dumping different ingredients into the large cauldron. “Alright, little prince, we’re going to make a deal, understand?” He says softly, looking over his shoulder at Brendon. “I’ll turn you human for one cycle of the Moon, that’s thirty days, got that? In those thirty days, you must get a kiss from your human—oh yes, I know all about your man, child, I’m no fool like your father,” He adds, turning around to catch Brendon’s expression of surprise and embarrassment all at once. “Don’t you worry, I understand; he’s quite a catch.” He winks. ”But about that kiss: it can’t be any old kiss. It must be a kiss of _true love_.” William’s mouth quirks into a half-smile. “That shouldn’t be too hard, should it? After all, you’ve been watching him for months now, you know everything about him, making him fall in love with you should be a breeze.”

Brendon blushes brightly, ducking his head. A _kiss_? From _Ryan_? Just days ago it seemed impossible that he’d ever even talk to the human, now he has to _kiss_ him?

“You must obtain true love’s kiss from your human within the Moon’s cycle.” William repeats, face darkening. “However— and this is important—should our Lady the Moon not look down upon you favorably and you do _not_ acquire the kiss, you will return to your original form of a merman, and you will belong to me—forever.” He adds flatly.

Brendon blinks, eyes going wide as he watches the sea witch pour a vat of something green into the cauldron, making it steam and bubble. The idea of getting to be with Ryan for a whole month not only to lose him forever, but then to also have to belong to someone again makes his stomach feel hot and uneasy. He already felt like a prisoner to his father, and there’s no telling what William might do to him.

As if sensing Brendon’s doubts, the sea witch smiles reassuringly up at him. “But that won’t happen, of course. Humans are dimwitted, they fall in love like debris falls from a ship. You’ll be just fine.” He soothes.

After adding a handful of what looks like glowing orange stones to the already bubbling mess inside of the pot, William offers his hand to Brendon. “It’s all ready. Are you?”

Brendon shuts his eyes for a brief moment, considering all of the possibilities and weighing his options. It’s a gamble, but if the prize is a genuine life as a human with Ryan, it’s not much of a choice at all. There’s a beat of silence before he nods. “I’m ready.” He whispers.

William grins and nods, sliding over and catching Brendon’s hand in his own. “Oh, and one more thing, of course: my payment.”

Brendon frowns, turning to William with alarm all over his face. “But I don’t have anything.”

William shakes his head, wrapping one arm around Brendon’s shoulders and rubbing his arm; his tentacles wrap loosely around Brendon’s tail, slimy and sticky as they move. “You have the only thing I want, princeling,” He says as one tentacle wraps very loosely around Brendon’s neck. “Your voice.”

“My voice?” Brendon echoes, lightly resting his fingers across his throat.

William nods. “Your voice. I’ll keep it for the time that you’re human up until you get that kiss.” He says. “You won’t need it, not really. You’ve gone this long without talking to him, what’s a lunar cycle more?” He murmurs, fingertips dancing up Brendon’s arm.

“But, how can I make him fall in love with me if I can’t even talk to him?” Brendon frowns.

“You’ve got a pretty little face, and darling, human boys only really want one thing— and it’s not conversation.” William snorts.

Brendon tugs on his bottom lip with his teeth, debating for only just a moment. Ryan isn’t the type who would reject him simply because he couldn’t talk...right? “Okay. Okay, you can have it, turn me human.” Brendon murmurs.

“Brendon, no!” Patrick cries. “It’s too much to ask for, what if you can’t get him to kiss you? Please, think about this!” He tries swimming forward, reaching out, but Greta yanks him back, growling softly.

William just grins and drops one last thing Brendon can’t see into the cauldron and a burst of light fills the room as pink and purple smoke spills over the cauldron’s edge and blankets the ground. The sea witch takes a small vial and scoops up some of the potion into it, the liquid dripping down his hand, before offering the little glass bottle to Brendon with a raised brow.

“If you drink this, our deal is final.” He says. “No going back.”

Brendon takes one last look at his friends. They’re both struggling against the mermaids who are holding them captive, looking at Brendon with pleading, desperate eyes. Brendon shakes his head and looks away again, staring down at the vial of bubbling liquid before tilting his head back and swallowing it in one go.

“Greta, Victoria, let the little prince’s friends go. They’ll need to get him up to the surface, fast.” William murmurs. “Say hello to your human for me.” He adds with a laugh to Brendon, the sound echoing in the merman’s ears as everything begins to go black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that a few details are different from the classic Disney Little Mermaid but I changed it up a little bit a.) to keep things more interesting and b.) to make it a little more realistic. No one falls in love in three days :P


	5. Chapter 5

Things don’t stay black for very long. Brendon is unconscious for a few seconds at most when he’s filled with excruciating pain that makes his entire body twist and writhe in the water. It feels as if his spine is being ripped straight from his body, his skin being shredded to pieces. A searing pain runs up his tail as if it’s splitting in half, and finally Brendon finds the strength to scream. The sounds fills the cave and echoes off of the walls, mixing with the noise of William’s maniac laughter. Brendon, too busy clawing at his neck as he tries to breathe—though all he gets is the burning sensation of saltwater in his nose and mouth—doesn’t notice William dart forward and snatch a glowing ball of light that forces its way from Brendon’s throat. For a moment everything goes silent.

“Better get him up to the surface,” William chides, breaking the quiet and scuttling back as Pete and Patrick rush forward. “He’s human now; they need air.”

“Brendon? Brendon can you hear me?” Patrick asks, linking his hands underneath one of Brendon’s arms as Pete does the same. “It’s-it’s all gonna be okay, we’re gonna help you, it’ll be okay.”

Brendon doesn’t respond, all of his focus is centered on the blinding pain in his tail and how his chest aches and burns in a way he’s never felt before. He barely registers Pete and Patrick hauling him out of the cave and up towards the surface. They’re swimming as fast as they possibly can, but Brendon can already feel himself fading. Light filters in bright rays from above, blurring and coming back into focus intermittently as Brendon fights to stay awake. The darkness closes in, though, making the rectangles of sunlight hazy, and this time when things go black, they stay that way.

\---

“—too late? Can you make out his heartbeat?”

Pete’s frightened voice comes floating into Brendon’s ears, slow and distant. Behind his friend’s words come other sounds: the obnoxious squawk of seagulls, the gentle roar of the ocean against the sand, the rustle of palm trees in the wind. Brendon listens for a moment, gradually coming back into himself and noticing that something is heavy on his chest, warm and wet, and beneath him grains of sand shift against his skin.

“He’s breathing, it’s alright.” Patrick’s voice comes, incredibly close to Brendon’s face.

The weight on his chest lifts suddenly, and Brendon struggles to open his eyes, blinking quickly at the bright Sun above him.

“Brendon? Brendon! Oh thank the Moon, you had us worried to _death_!” Patrick cries, falling forward on top of Brendon again and holding him tight. “Are you okay? How do you feel?”

Brendon opens his mouth to respond, but nothing comes out and his brow furrows.

“He took your voice, don't you remember?” Pete murmurs, looking guilty for a reason Brendon doesn’t quite understand.

_His voice?_   Who took his voice? Brendon tries sitting up, his feet pushing against the wet sand and he freezes. He has _feet_. Quickly, he scrambles to sit up causing sand to fly everywhere as he bends forward to inspect himself. His body aches, but he barely notices—he has _legs_!

“It worked, you’re human.” Patrick whispers, and Brendon looks up to see Patrick's friendly face smiling down at him, but his eyes shine with a sorrow that makes Brendon’s throat tight.

He looks around, finding that all three of them are situated in the shallows of the beach. Brendon is sitting in the sand, the water sloshing against his naked waist, and Pete and Patrick both rest on their stomachs as the waves gently wash over their tails.

“Well, what do you think?” Pete asks, nodding to Brendon’s legs.

Brendon grins and looks down, running his hands down the tops of his legs and then back up again, tilting his head as he looks into his lap.

“Yeah, we don’t know what that is.” Pete shrugs, nodding to where Brendon’s legs meet.

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” Patrick soothes, gently patting his hand on Brendon’s knee.

Brendon nods, unbothered, and smiles even wider as he lifts one leg into the air and wiggles his toes, his entire face lighting up at the movement. He has _legs_ , he’s a _human_. His wish came true! He slides his hand back down one leg again, the grin across his face threatening to split it in half. The feeling of smooth skin instead of scales is strange, but good. It's everything he had hoped it would be.

“Would you look at that?” A voice comes.

Brendon’s head whips around and his eyes grow wide as he sees a merman basking in the Sun on top of a rock nearby.

“Gabe!” Pete cries.

“Our little Brenny went and got himself some legs.” Gabe murmurs, his gold tail swishing, and fin lightly splashing in the water. “So it worked then? William turned you human?”

Brendon nods and kicks one leg into the air to show Gabe his brand new legs and feet. He even wiggles his toes again just so his friend can see how well they work.

“He can’t talk.” Patrick sighs. “That was the sea witch’s price. He took Brendon’s voice.”

Gabe frowns, glancing over at Brendon and shooting him a smile before looking back at Patrick, expression morphing to one of concern. “What was the deal, then?” He asks in a low voice, leaning down so Patrick can swim over and talk.

“He turned Brendon human for a Moon cycle. Brendon has to get a kiss from Ryan or else he’ll be turned back into a merman and...William will own him.” Patrick explains, hands clutching at the rock that Gabe is on so hard that his knuckles turn white. “And he also has Brendon’s voice until he gets the kiss.”

“True love’s kiss, it has to be true love!” Pete calls from where he’s got one of Brendon’s feet in his hands and is curiously examining each toe.

Brendon tries not to kick, but each brush of Pete’s fingers makes his skin tingle. He wrinkles his nose as he tries to stay as still as he can, shaking with silent laughter.

Gabe nods, pushing a hand through his damp hair before slipping gracefully down into the water next to Patrick. They both swim back over to Brendon and Pete, and Gabe smiles again.

“Look at you. That’s one nice pair of legs.” He says, nodding to Brendon. “I’d say you make a pretty good human.”

Brendon beams. It’s everything he could have ever wanted. He’s finally made it, all that’s left to do is find Ryan and make him fall in love with him.

“Yeah, but uh, what’s that?” Pete asks, pointing to Brendon’s waist.

Gabe blinks and swims closer to Brendon, resting his weight on one arm as he pushes up out of the water to scrutinize the thing in Brendon’s lap.

“Oh that.” He says, nodding. “Yeah, that’s a—” He purses his lip, tilting his head. “It’s a…”

“You don’t know what it is, do you?” Patrick asks flatly, swimming up to Brendon’s other side and wriggling in the sand so he can sit up.

“I do too!” Gabe protests, tail flapping indignantly in the water and splashing everyone. “The humans use them as weapons.” He says simply, tilting his head up in the air and looking down his nose at Patrick.

“ _Weapons_? How do they use them as weapons?” Pete asks curiously, pushing Brendon’s legs apart and shimmying up the sand.

“Well, they— “

“Dottie, no!” A voice cries.

All four of them look over to spot an animal Brendon usually sees running around and catching colored disks in the air with humans. He thinks Ryan has one too, but it could just be one of his friends’. The one he can see now is bounding towards him, tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth and ears flying back as its feet spray sand back with each stride.

Just behind the animal a human is trying to catch up, a loop of fabric clutched in his fist and a length of rope attached to the loop fluttering behind him.

“Brendon, we have to go.” Gabe says quickly, directing Brendon’s attention back to his friends. “If you need us, just come to this beach and stand in the waves. One of us will come.”

Patrick reaches out and clasps one of Brendon’s hands in his own; it feels unusually clammy and damp. “Be careful. Please, keep your head on right, don’t let anyone hurt you.” He whispers urgently.

“We’ll see you soon, Bren.” Pete says, patting his foot. His face is forlorn as he dives beneath the waves, lilac tail fluttering up into the air before disappearing.

“Be safe.” Patrick whispers once more before sliding under the water as well.

“Get that kiss, guppy.” Gabe says, reaching up to ruffle Brendon’s hair. “And you should probably put some clothes on, too. Humans don’t go around with their weapons exposed.” He adds before leaping across Brendon’s legs and vanishing from sight.

“Dottie!” The human cries again, and Brendon turns once more only to be tackled to the ground by the animal.

The thing is smaller than he thought, black and brown and white with floppy ears. It stands on his chest and licks at his face, but despite its size and wagging tail, Brendon finds himself nervous of the sharp teeth he can see.

“Dottie, no! Come here, get off of him!”

Brendon blinks in surprise and sits back up as the animal—Dottie—climbs off of him and runs to its master, plopping down in the sand and rolling onto its back. The man who bends down to fasten the loop of cloth around his animal’s neck is none other than Ryan.

“I’m so sorry,” Ryan says, squatting down and rubbing Dottie’s belly. “She gets so excited when she sees strangers and she wiggled out of her collar—” He shakes his head with a wry smile. “Dogs, am I right?”

Brendon looks down at the ‘dog’, still wary even as she rolls in the sand and pants up at him. He glances back up at Ryan just as the other boy takes a good look at him, frowning.

“Hey, are you okay?” He asks, ceasing the belly rubs he’d been giving to his dog and sitting back on his heels. “Where are your clothes? Do you need help?”

Brendon tilts his head and looks down at himself, remembering what Gabe said about his weapon. He must be making Ryan feel terribly nervous, maybe even threatened. Quickly he pushes away the wet hair stuck to his forehead before shoving his hands into his lap and offering Ryan his best smile, wide and friendly as he leans forward. Patrick always said first impressions are important.

Dottie rolls back over and trots over to Brendon, sniffing at his legs with a cold nose and pushing her head against his arm.

“Dottie, no.” Ryan says again, pulling the dog back and holding onto her collar. “Listen, I can get you to a doctor or something, I won’t hurt you.” He says carefully. “What’s your name?”

Brendon bites his lip, frowning just slightly and then shaking his head, pointing to his throat.

“You can’t talk?” Ryan asks.

Brendon shakes his head again, looking down at the sand. Maybe Ryan _will_ care that he’s mute. Maybe he’ll just leave Brendon here, beached on the sand and alone. He’ll have to wait an entire month before he can go back home, and even then he’d be stuck with William.

“That’s okay, we’ll figure this out.” Ryan says, pushing himself up and offering Brendon his hand. “Come on, let’s get you some clothes first. I probably have something back at my place that’ll fit you.”

Brendon looks down at Ryan’s hand for a moment before smiling brightly and reaching up to take it. Ryan tugs him to his feet, but immediately Brendon’s knees wobble and threaten to buckle. He’s entirely unused to having to support his own weight and quickly he’s falling back to the sand.

“Oh, oh!” Ryan cries, quickly taking one of Brendon’s arms and slinging it over his shoulder, supporting his weight. “Jeez, you must have really been through something. Uh, I’ll help you walk, then. Is that okay? We just need to get to my car, I have a towel you can cover yourself with.”

Brendon nods, clutching at Ryan’s shirt with his free hand as they begin to unsteadily make their way across the sand. Dottie barks and races a circle around them before darting off ahead.

“Dottie, get back here!” Ryan cries, exasperated. “She never listens.” He sighs, shaking his head. “It’s fine, she knows where the car is, she’ll just meet us there.”

Brendon nods like he knows just what a ‘car’ is, smiling at Ryan all the while. This is going far better than he thought it would; he didn’t even have to go looking for Ryan, the human just came right to him and practically whisked Brendon away! He’ll have true love’s kiss in no time.

With one final look back at the ocean sparkling and shimmering beneath the Sun, Brendon presses in just a little closer to Ryan and silently thanks the Moon in all Her luminous glory and generosity for blessing him with this chance at a better life.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say thank you guys so much for sticking with me through this and being so patient!

Brendon’s first thought as Ryan helps him over to the ‘car’ is _‘Why do humans live in large metal cages?’_. His second thought, as Ryan pulls part of it open and gestures for Brendon to slide inside, is _‘Does he expect me to live in it with him?’_. Evidently, he does, because Ryan then reaches over and pulls a long length of rough, tightly woven fabric from up by Brendon’s head and wraps it over his chest, strapping him to the seat and making his arms all but useless by his sides.

Clearly, that’s wrong, though, because Ryan gives him a funny look and says, “You do know to wear a seatbelt?” and reaches over again, keeping the rope that ties him to Dottie around his wrist, and pulling one of Brendon’s arms through a gap the ‘seatbelt’ makes before tugging the other across it.

“There.” He nods. “Alright?”

Brendon looks down at the long length of fabric Ryan had given him to wrap around his waist—it’s light green with white stripes—and then around at all of the different parts of the ‘car’ before nodding. Everything seems alright to him.

“Good.” Ryan gives a short nod and steps back, pushing the door back towards Brendon. As it shuts, a loud bang sounds and Brendon flinches, realizing he’s now closed inside of this weird smelling box, alone.

He blinks in surprise, eyes going wide. Now there’s a glass barrier between him and Ryan, and he’s confined inside of what he now registers must be a death trap. He launches forward, straining against the fabric on his chest that seems to give way with his movements, and smacks his palms against the glass desperately.

Ryan is already walking away though, either not seeing Brendon’s desperate pleas to be let free or just ignoring them. Except, there’s a click and Brendon’s head whips around to see Ryan pulling open another part of the car and sliding into the seat next to Brendon as Dottie jumps up into his lap with a happy bark.

“Back, girl, get back.” He chides, picking Dottie up around the middle and turning to deposit her onto a larger seat behind them. He twists back around before frowning down at his lap. “Fuck, where're my keys?” He grumbles, patting his hands down his body before pulling out a large jumble of metal from a hole in the fabric that clothes his waist and legs. That fabric is different than Brendon’s; it splits and wraps around each of Ryan’s legs individually.

The jagged silver and gold pieces don’t look like any keys Brendon’s ever seen before, but Ryan locates one off of the ring in his fist and jams it into a slot in the middle of the car before twisting his hand. Suddenly there’s a loud roar and Brendon jerks in surprise, clapping his hands over his ears and looking around frantically to find the animal that must have made the noise. He looks back at Dottie accusingly, like the giant sound could have come from her tiny body.

“It’s just the car, it’s okay.” Ryan soothes, biting his lip and watching Brendon carefully. “Have-have you ever been in a car?”

Brendon shakes his head, looking around and glancing down nervously at where his feet touch the bottom of the contraption. Did they wake it up? Is it angry? He didn’t come all this way just to be eaten by some monster Ryan keeps in his small metal house.

Ryan nods, toying with his bottom lip as he seems to take a moment to think. “Right, okay. That explains the seat belt.” He mumbles, though Brendon’s pretty sure it’s more to himself than anyone else. “Then I think maybe it’d be better if we didn’t take you to a hospital just yet. I think it would overwhelm you.”

Brendon nods seriously as if he is all too aware of the dangers of a hospital—whatever that is.

“I have a friend who’s a doctor, would it be okay if I had her meet us at my place to look at you?” Ryan asks. “I just want to make sure you’re not hurt or anything.”

Brendon looks out the window next to him, considering for a moment. He doesn’t _think_ Ryan would ever put him in danger, or try to get him in any trouble. Patrick said to be careful, but a doctor sounds kind of like the equivalent of a healer, and wouldn’t having someone look over his newly human body to make sure nothing’s wrong be as careful as he could be? He turns back to Ryan and nods.

“Alright, good. I’ll call her on the way.” Ryan says, reaching behind himself and skillfully pulling another ‘seatbelt’ out and across himself, and then placing his hands on a large wheel in front of him that looks sort of similar to the device used to steer on boats. “Ready?”

Brendon nods, though ready for what, he’s not sure.

“Good, then let’s go.” Ryan looks back ahead through the giant window in front of them and reaches down to put his hand on a lever that sticks up, shifting it before the car suddenly begins to move.

Brendon gasps and twists around so he can look out his own window, staring as the world begins to fly by so quickly he can barely make out more than blurs of color and vague shapes. These cars must be for _traveling_ which is amazing, because they’re moving faster than any boat Brendon’s ever seen, he’s sure of it. They should just put these things on water. He grins, pressing his nose against the glass to get a better view and pulling back after a moment to see fog all over where he’d just been. He blinks, watching it slowly disappear and puts his face back against the glass only to find that a few seconds later, the fog returns.

Brendon frowns, turning back to look ahead when his elbow slips and there’s a buzzing noise accompanied by the glass in the window next to him shifting down an inch or so. Brendon stares with wide eyes and looks down to where his arm was, seeing a small piece of plastic raised above the rest of the car. Curiously, he reaches down and pushes on it and the window jerks again. Brendon yanks his hand back, waiting for something else to happen, but when nothing does he presses it again. The glass slides down another inch, and this time Brendon holds his finger down and watches it disappear altogether. His mouth falls open and he turns to Ryan, unsure how to explain that he broke it, and his bottom lip begins to quiver.

Ryan looks over, arching a brow. “What? What is it?” He asks.

Brendon shakily runs a hand through his hair and gestures to where the glass used to be.

“The window? It does that, it’s supposed to. Look, you just press this button,” Ryan says, reaching over with one hand and pushing another piece of plastic down, making the glass rise back up again. “See? It’s okay.”

Brendon stares with wide eyes, gaze switching from Ryan to the window and back.

“It’s really okay, I promise.” Ryan gives a small smile.

Brendon nods, giving his own shaky smile back and returns to the buttons, grinning as he makes the glass rise and fall, back and forth. This goes on for a good five minutes before Ryan extends his arm out and rests his hand on Brendon’s.

“That’s probably enough, don’t you think?” He tries, looking slightly frazzled. “You wanna do me a favor?”

Brendon’s eyes go wide and he nods eagerly. He’d do anything for Ryan, this is just what he’s been waiting for: an opportunity to make the human fall in love with him.

“Okay.” Ryan smiles, pushing his hand back down into the hole he got his ‘keys’ from and producing a long, shiny black rectangle. “Here, can you just do me a favor and call my friend Z? The password is ‘palahniuk’, I’ll spell it for you. Just go to my contacts and find her name and press ‘call’, can you do that?” He asks, offering the rectangle over to Brendon.

Brendon tries to remain impassive; he remembers Z. She was the blonde girl who kept touching Ryan on the boat the day Brendon saved him. He takes the object, staring down at it for a moment, scrutinizing. It’s smooth and a little slippery, and there’s a button at the bottom that he presses, making the thing light up with a picture of Dottie. Brendon bites his lip, offering the picture to Ryan.

“Yeah, yeah that’s Dottie. So just type in the password, it’s ‘p-a-l-a’—no, you just, just touch the screen, just—” Ryan taps the rectangle and the picture of Dottie is obscured by a bunch of strange symbols. “Tap on those.”

Brendon’s brow furrows as he examines the rectangle, pressing the button over and over again to no avail. He tries doing as Ryan says and lightly touching the symbols, but that just makes tiny black dots appear in a smaller grey rectangle.

“No, no you have to wait so I can tell you the password, you can’t just type whatever you want or it won’t unlock,” Ryan explains, eyes flicking between the big window that shows them what they’re moving towards and the rectangle in Brendon’s hand. “So here, erase that, yeah, and now type ‘p-a-l-a…”

Brendon has no idea what ‘p’ looks like, let alone the other things Ryan is saying, so he just takes his best guess and starts tapping on symbols he thinks look nice. Eventually, no more dots appear and Brendon frowns.

“So is it unlocked, you got it?” Ryan asks, twisting the wheel around as the entire car turns. “Now just go to ‘contacts’ and fin—you’re still on the lockscreen.” He says flatly, looking down at the rectangle and then up at Brendon. “Do you need me to tell you the password again? It’s p-a-l— wait, can you _read_?”

Brendon isn’t quite sure how he’s supposed to answer that question because while he can read in his own tongue, he sure as barnacles can’t read whatever is on Ryan’s rectangle. Chances are, Mermish isn’t a commonly spoken language up on the surface, so Brendon opts for shaking his head.

Ryan sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose as the car comes to a stop. Brendon looks up out the front window to see a giant metal box above them with glowing red circles.

“Right, okay. That’s okay, it’s not your fault. Just lemme see and I’ll call her while we’re stopped.” Ryan says, gesturing for Brendon to return the object back to him.

Brendon drops the shiny black rectangle back in Ryan’s hands and resumes his new favorite activity of making the glass in the window move.

“Hey, Z?” Ryan says, shifting in his seat and apparently making the car move again as the circles switch from red to green.

Brendon blinks and turns back to Ryan, tilting his head. He’s got the rectangle pressed up to his face now, right against his ear. Apparently, that thing makes him think Brendon is the blonde girl who can’t keep her hands to herself. He frowns.

“Are you busy?”

Brendon shakes his head. The glass in the window can wait.

“Good, cuz I really need you to come over; it’s an emergency.”

Brendon’s eyes widen and he looks around. Emergency? What emergency, where? Everything seems calm and safe where they are, even Dottie has laid down and seems to be dozing slightly.

“No, not that kind of emergency,” Ryan says flatly, looking annoyed. “A real one, just—please. Please, can you come over and help me?”

Brendon nods quickly. He could help Ryan with the emergency, whatever it is. They do _not_ need that blonde girl to come help them with anything.

“Thank you, fuck.” Ryan breathes a sigh of relief. “I owe you one. Yeah, I’m like five minutes away. Uh huh. Sure. Okay, see you soon.” He says before pulling the rectangle back and dropping it in his lap.

Apuptly Ryan twists the wheel and they swerve up a hill where a giant building looms in front of them. Ryan reaches down and shifts the lever from before and then reaches behind the wheel to twist his keys and pull them out of the slot.

“Okay, we’re here.” He says, turning to Brendon and offering him a smile. He reaches down next to his leg and presses on something Brendon can’t see, but there’s a click and Ryan’s seat belt slides across his body and back up against the side of the car.

Brendon nods, looking at the building that must be Ryan’s _real_ home before gazing back at Ryan. The other boy pulls on some sort of tiny lever against the wall of the car that makes it open again and crawls out, standing and stretching for a moment. He whistles, causing Dottie to perk up and wiggle her way out too, bounding for the house.

Anxiously Brendon waits, looking down and around himself at the restraints binding him to the car. He has no idea how he’s supposed to get out despite Ryan making it look so easy. Thankfully, Ryan seems to sense that Brendon’s stuck without any help and walks around the vehicle, pulling the metal wall back and reaching over to remove the belt. Brendon watches him press down on a plastic block he hadn’t noticed before and the seat belt retreats back, allowing him to crawl out of the car and nearly faceplant onto the ground.

Ryan immediately steadies him, holding him tight and tugging him towards the building ahead of them. However, Brendon can’t do anything but repeatedly lift his feet up and down as the ground beneath him scalds the soles. He looks up at Ryan helplessly, hopping in place.

“Oh, shit, you don’t have shoes on. Okay, okay, it’s alright.” He says, looking a little unsure of what to do before he kicks his feet and two small platforms he was standing on slide off. “Here, you can wear mine, I’m used to standing on the sand when it’s hot.”

Brendon shoots Ryan a confused look, but jumps over onto the platforms, one for each foot, and stands there. It’s good for when he’s standing still, but he still doesn’t know how they’re going to get inside Ryan’s house.

“No, no,” Ryan shakes his head, pressing Brendon against the car for a moment so he can use it for balance before kneeling down. “You put them through this so they’ll stay on.” He explains, lifting one of Brendon’s feet up and sliding it through a flat piece of fabric that’s bound to the platform. “Where the fuck have you been that they didn’t give you _shoes_?” He mutters.

Brendon gets the other ‘shoe’ on, wriggling his toes as he adjusts. He hates them. However, it seems that they’re the only solution to avoiding the fiery ground, so he holds onto Ryan as they stumble their way up to his home. Dottie follows behind, occasionally darting off to sniff at the ground or chase something, but returning as they stop outside a door. Ryan digs into the seemingly infinite hole that holds all of his things and pulls out the ring of keys again, flipping through them until he singles out a shiny silver one. He slides that into a slot and twists it, much like he did in the car, and reaches down to grab a reflective gold orb that sticks out, twisting that too and pushing the door open.

Dottie immediately bursts inside, flopping onto the floor and spreading out, tongue hanging from her mouth.

“Home sweet home,” Ryan says, leading Brendon over to a long piece of furniture that’s soft and a deep red color. “You sit here on the couch and I’ll be right back, okay?”

Brendon nods, letting himself fall onto the ‘couch’ and sitting back. His legs are getting a little stronger at least; he didn’t need so much help getting across the floor of Ryan’s house. Now that he can relax and not worry about hurting himself in any attempts at walking, Brendon takes the time to look around.

The room is filled with things that Brendon has never seen before, it’d take ages just to explore this area by itself, let alone the whole house. There’s a long metal pole next to him that’s covered on top by a cone of fabric and emits light, and across from him is a giant black rectangle on the wall that looks quite similar to Ryan’s tiny one that had Dottie on it. Directly in front of him is a smallish table that has books stacked on it. Brendon picks one up curiously, flipping through the pages and noting all of the different symbols. They look like the ones on Ryan’s mini rectangle.

“Oh, Invisible Monsters?” Ryan asks from the doorway, a cylinder of glass in each hand that’s filled with water. “I don’t guess you know Chuck Palahniuk since you can’t read and all?”

Brendon frowns and looks back down at the book. He didn’t see any sort of monsters at all in the pages or even on the cover. But they are supposed to be invisible, so he supposes that makes sense.

“It’s really good,” Ryan grins, walking over and taking a seat next to Brendon in what looks like a smaller version of the ‘couch’ he’s on. “It’s about this girl— she’s a model, and she was shot, and horribly disfigured because of it—well, okay, _really_ it’s a narrative on the search for one’s identity; it’s one of my favorites.”

Brendon wrinkles his nose and sets the book back down. A story about a horribly disfigured girl doesn’t sound terribly appealing.

“It’s really not bad.” Ryan protests on seeing Brendon’s expression. “I suppose it’s also not for everyone, though.” He concedes, leaning back and bringing the cylinder to his lips. “Here, are you thirsty? I got you some water.” He says, offering Brendon the other cylinder.

Brendon takes the glass, surprised to find it cold, and looks at it curiously. He’s never seen water in these sorts of things, just those awful plastic bottles that end up in the ocean. Now that he’s human, he supposes he’s got to drink the liquid instead of breathe it. He mimics Ryan, bringing the glass up to his lips and sputters, shaking his head. It’s far too cold, running down his chin and making his teeth ache.

Ryan blinks and quickly takes the glass back, setting on the table. “You don’t like water?” He asks.

Brendon wipes at his face, unsure how to explain that he’s actually going to die if everything here on the surface is that cold.

There’s a knocking sound that comes from where he and Ryan had entered the house and Brendon turns curiously.

“That’s probably Z,” Ryan explains, pushing himself up as Dottie jumps to her feet, barking madly. “Hush, Dot, it’s just Z, you know her.” He chides, pulling the door open and stepping back.

The pretty girl from before steps into the house, blonde hair rippling down her shoulders and lips quirked in a bright red smile.

“Alright, Ross, what’s this big emergency?” She asks, setting a bag down at her feet and leaning up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to Ryan’s cheek.

Brendon forces himself not to glare at the siren, instead looking at Ryan curiously. He’d like to know that too.

Ryan bites his lip like he’s not really sure how to explain it at all. “I need you to look at someone for me.” He says carefully.

Z arches a brow. “Ryan, you know I’m not a vet. If Dottie is acting strange, you’ve got to take her somewhere else.” She says as if Ryan’s asked for her help in this department before.

Ryan frowns and shakes his head. “Dottie is fine.” He says shortly. “This is a human.”

Z blinks, looking around and spotting Brendon on the couch, her eyes widening and her crimson lips making a small ‘o’ shape. “Who is that?” She asks.

Brendon blushes and ducks his head, looking away from them both. Z is much more intimidating than she’d seemed the first time he saw her on the boat. She’s dressed in all black now, though some of the fabric covering her torso is sheer and see-through, and the shoes _she’s_ wearing aren’t the uncomfortable ones Ryan offered him with the fabric between his toes, but instead cover her whole foot and have a spear on the bottom that makes her taller.

“Well, I don’t exactly know,” Ryan admits, his own face tinging pink as he rubs the back of his neck.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Z asks, voice sounding dangerous in a way Brendon’s never heard anyone speak. The closest he can think of is when Patrick asks him just what he thinks he’s doing playing with the merchildren in the market when he’s supposed to be having lessons in the castle.

Ryan’s gaze flicks to Brendon. “He can’t talk.” He murmurs. “But I found him on the beach, he was naked and alone; he needs help.”

“Then why didn’t you take him to the _hospital_?” Z hisses, glaring at Ryan, but glancing at Brendon for a moment.

“I couldn’t!” Ryan argues. “He’s never even been in a goddamn _car_ before, the noises freaked him out! You think he’d be okay in a fucking _hospital_ with people poking him and touching him? Z, he didn’t have any clue what my phone was and wherever he was, he didn’t even have _shoes_.”

Z sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose much like Ryan did back in the car. She taps her foot for a moment, the action making a small clicking noise as her shoe hits the floor. “Alright. I’ll look at him.” She says finally, giving Ryan a hard look. “But if he needs anything done, you’re paying for it, got that?”

Ryan nods, rolling his eyes. “Yes ma’am.” He mutters.

Z nods and turns to Brendon now, taking a cautious step forward. “Hey, uhm. Sweetie?” She tries.

Brendon looks up from where he’s been leaned over, petting Dottie’s belly. The dog had trotted over and begun sniffing him again and then nudged at his hand with her wet nose before rolling onto her back. She seemed safer than Z anyways, and Brendon supposed she might even protect him from the woman with the bright red mouth, so he’d given in.

“My name is Z. I’m a doctor, do you mind if I take a look at you?” She asks, taking another step forward when Brendon doesn’t react.

Brendon frowns, looking over at Ryan. He had _not_ told Brendon that this was the person he wanted to examine him.

“It’s okay. She’s my friend, she won’t hurt you.” Ryan promises, walking over and sitting beside Brendon. “She just wants to make sure you aren’t sick or anything.”

Brendon looks back at Z, biting his lip. Maybe if she gets her little look in, she’ll go away and never come back ever again. He nods.

Z gives him a wide smile that actually looks genuine and grabs her bag before sitting down on the table in front of him that holds Invisible Monsters. “Okay, first I’m going to listen to your heart.” She says, pulling out a long skinny piece of rubber with a metal disk at one end and a strange u-shape on the other that she puts either ends of in her ears.

Brendon nods, but looks at Ryan again doubtfully.

“It doesn’t hurt. It’s just a little cold is all, I’m right here.” He smiles, reaching over and taking one of Brendon’s hands in his own, squeezing it lightly.

Brendon feels heat creep across his cheeks and hopes that Z won’t notice his heartbeat bumping up in speed.

The doctor leans over and presses the metal disk to Brendon’s chest—it’s cold, and he flinches, but Ryan just runs his thumb over Brendon’s hands and he doesn’t move away— listening carefully before nodding. She moves the disk and does the same thing again, placing it all over his chest and then even his back for a little bit before nodding to herself. “Okay, I’m going to look at your ears now. It’s just a little light, it won’t hurt either.” She says softly, pulling a strange triangular object made of metal out of her bag.

Brendon’s eyes flick to Ryan, who just nods encouragingly.

Z crawls over onto the couch, on Brendon’s other side, and gently places the object inside one of his ears before turning his head and looking at the other. “Mhm. Okay, can you open your mouth for me?” She asks.

Brendon arches a brow, but parts his lips.

“Stick your tongue out for me and say _‘ahhh’_ can you do that?”

Brendon pushes his tongue out, trying to mimic her noise, but there’s only silence.

Z clicks her tongue and nods to herself. “Right, now I’m going to look at your eyes. There’s gonna be a bright light, but just look at my finger.” She says, holding her hand up and folding all of her fingers but one. Brendon notices her nails are painted the same color as her lips.

A tiny silver cylinder comes from the bag and Z clicks a button on it, shining a light right into Brendon’s eyes. He blinks quickly, but keeps his gaze trained on her finger as she moves it around, switching from one eye to the other.

“Good, you’re doing good.” Z praises, and Brendon can’t help but feel a little proud that he’s passing all of these human tests. “Here, can you come sit up on the table for me?” She asks, offering a hand to him. “I wanna check your reflexes.”

“He can’t walk very well,” Ryan says, standing as well.

Z nods. “Okay, lemme see what you can do then, hon.” She says to Brendon.

Brendon bites his lip, looking nervously up at Ryan. What if he fails now because he can’t walk right? He’s never had legs before, he’s still learning, that's not fair.

“It’s okay, just do the best you can,” Ryan murmurs. “I’ll help you.”

Brendon looks down as he feels Dottie lick his ankle and he smiles just slightly, nodding. He pushes up, standing with some difficulty as he sways, but Ryan’s hand comes out to help balance him. The fabric Ryan had given him drops from around his waist and Brendon looks at Ryan, alarmed.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, she’s seen it all before. She’s a doctor.” Ryan soothes.

Brendon looks to Z, who seems completely unfazed by the sudden appearance of his weapon. Is a doctor some sort of military expert? He thought she was a healer.

“If you want, Ryan can get you some clothes. Would that make you more comfortable?” Z asks kindly.

Brendon has no idea what clothes are. Gabe had mentioned them to him before leaving, and he assumes it’s the things that cover humans up so they can hide their weapons and display colors for mating, but he can’t be sure.

“I’ll go get you something, I’ll be right back.” Ryan says, going towards a hallway off to the right.

Brendon gasps and shakes his head, reaching for Ryan desperately. He doesn’t want to be alone, even if Z seems a lot nicer than he’d previously thought.

“Wait, Ryan, just stay,” Z calls. “Our priority right now is making him feel safe, and you seem to do that.”

Ryan nods and moves away from the hallway, back towards Brendon.

“Why don’t you try walking over to Ryan?” Z says, picking her bag up and slinging it onto her shoulder.

Ryan’s just a few feet away, right next to the larger table across the room, but from here the distance seems like miles.

Sensing his uncertainty, Ryan offers Brendon a smile. “I’ll catch you if you start to fall. Come on, you can do it.” He says, holding his arms out.

Brendon’s not so sure, but he really doesn’t want to disappoint Ryan so he keeps one hand on the couch and edges around the table that holds the books before taking a very careful step forward. Z is just behind him, her hands out to catch him if need be, but not touching him. He only wobbles slightly, and spurred on, he takes another. This is sort of like when parents teach their young to swim once they're old enough. Smiling wide at Ryan, he takes two more forward, and while they’re a little unsteady, he hasn’t fallen yet. He gets all the way across the room before getting ahead of himself and tripping across his own feet, toppling right into Ryan’s waiting arms.

“You did good.” Ryan says, tugging him upright and leading him to sit on top of the table.

“Very good," Z agrees. "I think you’re just a little out of practice is all.” She adds with a smile, kneeling in front of Brendon and taking another tool out of her seemingly bottomless bag.

It turns out that when Ryan said Z wanted to ‘take a look at him’ that actually meant she was going to spend the better part of an hour putting things in his mouth, squeezing his arm as hard as she could with a weird object that wrapped around his bicep, tapping both knees with a strange little rubber triangle that made his legs kick, and then examining his weapon to make sure it wasn’t broken. By the time they finish, the Sun is setting outside, casting golden rays into the house through a window on the far wall and throwing shadows across the room.

“So?” Ryan asks, helping Brendon down off of the table and nudging him towards the couch again. “How is he?”

Z looks up at Ryan, tapping one of her long red nails against her chin and staying quiet for a moment. “Well,” She says, dropping her bag onto the smaller table that holds the books Brendon had looked at. “I’d like to get some blood work done, just to be sure, but all in all he’s just fine.”

“Just fine?” Ryan frowns. “Z, I found him naked on the beach by himself, he can’t read, he’s never been in a car, he can’t even _speak_ , it’s like he was just born or something! How can he be just fine?”

Brendon flushes, clasping his hands and looking down at his lap. Ryan thinks he’s defective. As useless as a baby. This was a terrible idea, how could he ever have thought that Ryan would want someone who’d lived underwater most of their life? He must think Brendon’s a complete idiot: mute and unable to read his books about disfigured girls.

“I don’t know anything about how he is psychologically. I’d say take him to a therapist, but I doubt he knows sign language and I’d bet money that he can’t write so I don’t know how well that would work. But physically, he’s as healthy as you or I. Probably even healthier.” Z says, flopping down into one of the tiny couches next to Brendon. “Ry, his vocal chords aren’t even damaged.”

“Well, what are we supposed to do now?” Ryan demands.

Z frowns, looking over at Brendon and shaking her head. “For now, I’d say we need to feed him and put him to bed. I’m sure he’s had a very long day.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for waiting!! I promise it's worth it, I really liked writing this chapter.
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Brendon isn’t entirely sure how he feels about human food. Whatever Ryan tried to give him first after sitting him down at the big table smelled strangely sour and made Brendon wrinkle his nose, pushing away the bowl of strange wedge shapes that left the sharp scent on his fingers.

“You don’t like french fries?” Ryan frowned.

“Maybe he doesn’t like them drowned in vinegar,” Z muttered.

Then Ryan had offered him a plate that held what looked like very thin pieces of dried seaweed all tangled together with some sort of red goop on top and weird chunks of something sprinkled across. When Brendon reached down and scooped up some of the strands in his hand, they slipped right out of his fingers and splatted back onto the plate, splashing red on his arms.

“N-no, no you eat it with a fork…” Ryan said, looking sort of harassed. He set down a small metal trident next to the plate and it reminded Brendon far too much of his father, so he just pushed the entire ensemble away.

Z sighed. “Spaghetti is a no then.”

The next thing Ryan tried was fish, and Brendon couldn’t decide whether he wanted to dart right out the door or throw the plate on the ground and watch it smash to pieces. He must have looked at least a little horrified, despite the way he tried to hide it for the sake of being polite, because Z shoved the plate away quite violently and glared at Ryan like he’d offered Brendon a baby for dinner.

They went through the entirety of Ryan’s food storage area before he finally just set down a bowl with tiny brown spheres floating in white liquid. “That’s all I’ve got.” He sounded so defeated Brendon silently prayed that he’d at least be able to tolerate this.

“Maybe he’s just not hungry,” Z suggested.

Brendon took the tiny silver scooper in one hand like Ryan had showed him and gathered up a cluster of the spheres before taking a bite. It was sweet, and a little cold, but not like the painful water he’d had before that made his teeth ache; this was actually pretty good! He grinned and shoveled another scoop into his mouth.

“Cocoa Puffs,” Ryan said flatly. “He doesn’t like the expensive food truck tacos or homemade vegetable stew, but he likes expired, stale Cocoa Puffs.”

Z was obviously stifling giggles, but Brendon didn’t even notice as he attacked the bowl of puffs, cold white dribbling down his chin.

After that, he must have drifted off because he reawakened to find his cheek mashed against sweet smelling skin and fingers gently running through his hair. Nobody seemed to notice though, so he stayed silent and pretended to still be sleeping, and now, thirty minutes later, Ryan and Z still spoke.

“Should we call the police?” Z whispers, her shining red nails lightly scratching against Brendon’s scalp and threatening to lull him back into a deep slumber.

“Maybe later, not tonight. They’d probably scare him worse than a hospital.” Ryan’s voice comes low and quiet.

“What if he escaped like, human trafficking? I just saw a story on the news last night about Houston…”

“If he did, then he’s been through enough and he’ll be just as capable to talk to someone tomorrow as he’d be tonight.” There’s the sound of movement and Brendon thinks it’s Ryan shifting in his seat. “I don’t think it’s that, though,” He adds. “He wasn’t really...scared when I found him. He seemed more curious, like he’d never been on Earth before.”

“You think he’s an alien?” Even Brendon can hear the amusement in Z’s voice and he vaguely wonders what an ‘alien’ is.

“No I do not think he’s an alien.” Ryan huffs, and Brendon doesn’t even have to peek his eyes open to know that Ryan has his arms crossed and is looking at Z with an indignant expression; it's been a common occurrence since she arrived. “I’m just saying that he seems lost, not abused.”

“Maybe he’s running away,” Z offers, and she shifts too, keeping one hand beneath Brendon’s head so as not to disturb him.

“Running away from what? And how did he end up on the beach of all places, _naked_?”

“Well I don’t know, but it’s a better theory than your aliens.” Z snorts. “He could be foreign, maybe he came across the ocean—maybe he _shipwrecked_!” Her voice is an excited hiss, and Brendon can feel her lean forward eagerly.

“Shipwrecked?” Ryan’s voice is flat, as if she’d suggested that Brendon had fallen from the sky.

“Ryan, it makes complete sense; he was on a boat, they probably got caught by that nasty storm that got us too, he just didn’t get to shore immediately. He’s probably from some other country and was coming to America, which is why he doesn’t know any of our customs, and then he shipwrecked, and now he's traumatized so that’s why he can’t talk and couldn’t walk.”

It’s a good enough theory for Brendon, and he’ll probably use it later on to explain things once he’s got his voice back—once Ryan has given him true love’s kiss.

“I guess it’s possible.” Ryan sounds unsure, though, and Brendon wonders just what exactly he thinks happened.

“In any case, you’re going to have to figure something out,” Z says softly, pushing the hair back from Brendon’s forehead. “Wherever he came from, he’s here now, and if you’re going to keep him you’ll have to tell someone.”

Brendon fights the annoyed expression that threatens to flit across his face at the implication that he’s some sort of pet to be ‘kept’. He’s not a minnow that’s following Ryan around in hopes that he’ll keep bigger fish away.

“I did tell someone. I told you.” Ryan points out.

“Someone besides me, Ryan.” Brendon can practically hear Z roll her eyes. “He’s going to need paperwork, a birth certificate, a license, shit like that. Even if he doesn’t belong to somebody else, he won’t last long here without someone finding out and asking questions. If he’s… in some kind of trouble, it could fall back on you.”

“Belong to somebody else? Z, he’s not a fuckin’ dog,” Ryan says, tone becoming a little more than annoyed. “I’ll figure it out, just not tonight.” He sighs.

“Better do it soon.” Z gently lifts Brendon’s head and sets it back down on the couch as she stands. “You don’t want the government to think you’re harboring a fugitive or something.”

“A _fugitive_?” There are more sounds of shifting and Brendon thinks Ryan must be standing too. “How do you go from victim of a shipwreck to fugitive?”

“I’m not saying that’s the only possibility, I’m just saying you need to be careful and really think about this. There’re shelters for people like him, Ry, and far better-equipped people than you to handle this.”

Brendon can’t help but frown and he hopes that if the two humans see, they’ll think he’s just having a bad dream. Z is trying to _get rid of him_. She’s trying to convince Ryan that he’s too much trouble. He _trusted_ her with all those healer tools and gentle touches and saving him from the disgusting fish. How could she be trying to get rid of him?

“Z, I said I’ll figure it out. He just got here tonight, I’m not gonna put him out on the streets before he even has the chance to get his head on straight.” Ryan’s voice is firm and leaves no room for questions or arguments, and a smile makes Brendon’s lips twitch.

There’s a heavy sigh and Brendon pictures Z’s bright red lips turned down. “I’m not trying to be the bad guy, here. I like him, I really do. He’s cute and sweet and sort of adorable, really, which is why I’m telling you all of this. I want what’s best for _both_ of you. He’s basically a child right now, Ryan. You ready for kids?”

There’s just silence for a long while, and then the sound of footsteps.

“I’ll call you tomorrow.” Z murmurs as the sound of the door opening hits Brendon’s ears.

“Sure,” Ryan mumbles, and the door shuts again.

The click of nails on the wood floor tells Brendon that Dottie has risen and is scrambling over to Ryan, and he hears Ryan sigh now. “You like him, don’t you?” Ryan asks softly.

Dottie doesn’t reply, and Brendon briefly wonders if she’s supposed to.

“He doesn’t have anyone, girl. No one but us. I’ve had no one before, and you have too, so we can’t just abandon him, right?”

Dottie only makes heavy breathing noises and Brendon thinks that means she’s got her tongue out while Ryan pets her. Even though she doesn’t say anything, Ryan must take her silence as agreement because he doesn’t add anything more and his footsteps sound across the floor.

Vaguely, Brendon considers pretending to wake up now so he can have Ryan all to himself, but before he opens his eyes, a soft click sounds and the entire room goes dark. It isn’t much longer until Brendon’s drifted off and is snoring softly.

\---

Brendon wakes to a room flooded with Sunlight and the sound of some sort of crunching noise off from where Ryan had tried feeding Brendon the day before. He blinks slowly, rubbing his eyes and sitting up. With the lack of long shadows and all of the bright light, it almost looks like he’s in an entirely different room if not for the red furniture and Ryan’s books on the table in front of him.

 _Ryan._ Brendon did it! He got to Ryan, he got _legs_! Silently giggling, he wiggles his toes and kicks his feet, watching with a wide, pleased smile.

“You’re awake.”

Brendon turns, eyes widening as Ryan walks into the room. He’s got some sort of stick in his mouth, and foamy white on his lips.

“Did you sleep well?” Ryan asks, smiling just a little and taking the stick out of his mouth. Brendon can see strange looking bristles on the stick with more foamy white on it.

Brendon nods, smiling too, and keeping his eyes on the stick—it looks almost like the brushes they use to clean the royal whales except it’s thinner and far smaller.

“Good, I’m glad. Are you hungry?” Ryan’s word sound strange, like he’s talking with his mouth full. He puts the stick back in his mouth and starts moving it back and forth.

Before Brendon can even consider, his stomach grumbles loudly and he glances down, surprised.

Ryan laughs, the sound garbled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Brendon feels his cheeks heat up and he gives a sheepish smile, twisting to watch Ryan go into the room with all of the food.

He leans down, spitting a large glob of white foam into the metal basin that he’d put all of the dishes from last night into, and then drinks from a glass on the counter before spitting again. “I don’t suppose you’d like to try something besides Cocoa Puffs? I could make you pancakes, or an omelette.”

Brendon has no idea what pancakes or an omelette is, but he does remember the puffs and how delicious they were. He nods quickly, pushing up on his knees to point to the brown box they had come from.

Ryan shakes his head, but there’s a smile on his face and he chuckles quietly. “Alright, alright. But you can’t eat only that forever, you know. They have way too much sugar,” He says, turning around and opening a cabinet behind him, pulling out a bowl and grabbing the box of puffs before pouring some for Brendon. Then he goes to a large metal box that holds only cold things, Brendon has found, and grabs a container of the white stuff and pours that in with the puffs before setting the bowl on a table with another shiny scooper.

Brendon smiles brightly and pushes up, swaying on his feet, but not falling, to his delight. Carefully, and very slowly, he makes his way over to the table and sits down. He glances over, finding that the source of the crunching noise from before is Dottie off in the room with Ryan, bent over a bowl filled with what looks like the same puffs in Brendon’s bowl now.

“Oh.”

Brendon turns, tilting his head. Ryan’s face is a bright red color and his eyes are wide.

“You’re still naked,” Ryan says, nodding to Brendon.

Brendon looks down at himself and then back up at Ryan, biting his lip. He’s not sure what to do; he forgot that humans enjoy covering themselves and now it seems he’s made Ryan incredibly uncomfortable. He’s _got_ to remember to stop running around with his weapon exposed.

Ryan walks back into the room where Brendon slept and picks up a large wad of fabric that’s hanging off of the couch, bringing it over to Brendon and wrapping it around his shoulders. It’s soft and smells like Ryan, and Brendon smiles wide as he buries his face in it and inhales deeply.

“We can go shopping today, if you want? I’ll get you some clothes. You could wear mine, but they’d all probably be pretty long on you,” Ryan murmurs.

Brendon nods absently, pushing his hands out of the fabric to grab the scooper and go to town on his puffs. He hardly notices Ryan walk around the table and sit across from Brendon, but he does look up when Ryan clears his throat and leans forward, clasping his hands together.

“Can I ask you some questions?” Ryan’s voice is soft and gentle, though his expression is unsure.

Brendon nods, looking back down at his puffs and shoveling another scoop into his mouth.

Ryan takes a deep breath and then lets it out, nodding. “Are you from around here?”

Brendon shakes his head, giving a small snort. If Ryan had any idea how not ‘from around here’ he was, he’d probably try to throw him right back out into the ocean.

Ryan nods. “I didn’t think so,” He murmurs. “Did someone bring you here? Did you get stranded?”

Brendon tilts his head, considering as he chews his puffs thoughtfully. Someone _did_  bring him here; Pete and Patrick had to carry him to the surface. After a moment, he nods again.

“Did someone hurt you?” Ryan asks softly, almost like he’s afraid Brendon will hurt him for asking.

Brendon shakes his head. Being turned into a human may have hurt, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t asked William to do it.

Ryan looks relieved, muscles in his face visibly relaxing. “Good. Good, that’s good. So, you’re from far away; do you plan on going back home?”

Brendon quickly shakes his head, eyes wide. He’ll die before he ever goes back to that prison underwater.

Ryan blinks, looking a little surprised. “No? Why not? Don’t you have a family?”

Brendon swallows and his grip on the silver scooper for his puffs tightens, his knuckles growing white. He stares determinately down at the wooden grooves on the table.

“Okay, okay. Hey, look at me.” Ryan’s voice is soft, and so is his expression when Brendon glances back up. “I understand about not getting along with your family. You don’t have to go back if you don’t want to, okay? We’ll figure this out.”

Brendon gives a grateful smile and nods. He can feel his stomach swooping and swirling as he looks at Ryan, with his soft brown hair falling into his eyes and his gentle smile making his lips twist just slightly. ‘We’, he said. He and Brendon. Together. It’s enough to make Brendon want to throw himself over the table and kiss the human for all he’s worth, true love or not.

“Is there a way you can tell me how you got here?” Ryan asks. “The more I know the more I’ll be able to help you.”

Brendon takes a bite of his puffs and chews thoughtfully. It’s obvious he can’t tell Ryan about the sea witch and their deal, but he also doesn’t want to lie. He sets down the scooper and wiggles his hand in the air to mimic Pete and Patrick bringing him to shore.

“You...swam?” Ryan tries.

Brendon shrugs and nods. Good enough.

“But where did you come from? I know it’s far away, were you on a boat?” Ryan asks.

Brendon shakes his head.

“You just swam here, from wherever you came from?” Ryan looks doubtful and arches a brow.

Brendon bites his lip, lightly tapping his fingers on his cheek. Then he stands and puts his hands on his hips, the fabric Ryan had put around his shoulders falling to the floor. He crosses his arms and pretends to shout at an invisible person in front of him, wagging his finger. Then, he turns and faces where he was a moment ago and clasps his hands, pleading. He glances at Ryan, pointing to his own chest before he continues pleading with the invisible person he was before.

“You...wanted something?” Ryan tilts his head.

Brendon nods quickly and switches back over to the other side, shaking his head and berating where he was before.

“And someone didn’t want you to have...whatever it is you wanted?”

Brendon nods again, grinning.

“Who was it?” Ryan asks. “Your parent?”

Brendon nods quickly, puffing his chest out and strutting around.

“Your father?” Ryan looks like he’s trying not to laugh.

Brendon claps and nods.

“Okay, so you wanted something and your father wouldn’t let you have it so…?” Ryan tugs at the inside of his cheek with his teeth, brow furrowing. “You ran away?”

Brendon jumps up and down and nods, nearly falling over as his still relatively new legs tremble from all of the use they’re getting this morning. He stumbles over and plops back down into the chair, picking up his scooper again.

“Well, what was it you wanted?” Ryan asks, pushing his chair back and standing to retrieve the fallen piece of fabric he’d given Brendon, wrapping it around Brendon’s shoulders once more.

Brendon can feel his cheeks quickly heat up and he ducks his head, shaking it. He shovels in a scoop of the puffs, focusing hard on chewing.

“Okay, you don’t have to tell me. It’s okay. At least I know you’re not in some kind of illegal trouble or something.” Ryan reaches over and carefully lays his hand atop Brendon’s free one resting on the table.

Brendon looks up and his face only grows warmer.

“So I think the first thing we should do is buy you some clothes of your own, like I was saying earlier,” Ryan says, standing again and going back to the room he’d gotten Brendon’s puffs from. He opens the giant metal box and pulls out a smaller, bumpy box, and sets that on the counter before grabbing a yellow block wrapped in paper and various things that look sort of like vegetables from a drawer before shutting the silvery door again. “You should probably shower before we leave, though. You still have sand in your hair and you smell like the ocean. No offense.”

Brendon tilts his head. What’s wrong with smelling like the ocean? It’s salty and sweet and clean and free. And _what_ is a shower? Ryan must have sensed Brendon’s confusion because he glances over his shoulder as he sets a large metal circle with a handle on top of the counter and twists something Brendon can’t see.

“I’ll show you after breakfast, okay? Eat up, we’ve got a big day ahead of us.”

Brendon nods eagerly and shovels the puffs into his mouth at a breakneck speed. After a few minutes, Ryan comes and sits in front of him with a plate of something fluffy and yellow with green and red specks in it. Brendon eyes it hesitantly, watching as Ryan eats...whatever it is with the tiny silver trident.

“It’s just scrambled eggs, not like, salamander brains.” Ryan laughs.

Brendon wrinkles his nose, finishing off his puffs without looking back at Ryan’s messed up eggs. Humans eat  _animal young?_ Brendon is quite content to eat his puffs for the rest of his life if that's all that's left waiting for him. He quickly and silently shoots a prayer to the Moon that these puffs aren't some sort of offspring too. 

Once Ryan is done, he stands and gathers up his plate and Brendon’s bowl and sets them in the silver basin before walking back over to Brendon and offering his hand. “Shower now?”

Brendon nods, though he still has no idea what a ‘shower’ is supposed to be or how it’s going to make him not smell like the ocean anymore. He takes Ryan’s hand and pulls himself up, following after the human down a long hall and into a room that’s almost entirely white. It’s a stark change from the dim warmth of the rest of Ryan’s home.

“Okay, so I’ll show you how to turn on the water and then, ugh—I thought I had some clean towels, fuckin’ Z,” Ryan mutters, kneeling down by a large white basin.

Brendon watches as Ryan reaches up and twists a knob on the wall and to his utter shock, water pours out of a shiny metal tube below the knob. Ryan rests his hand beneath the water and then twists the knob just a little to the right before turning back to Brendon.

“Feel that, would you? Is it too hot?”

Brendon kneels down too, feeling the water and then shaking his head. It’s warm, like the water close to the surface during the Summer when the Sun has had all day to blare down.

“Okay, good. I have shampoo and conditioner here, there’s soap, I’ll get you a washcloth,” Ryan pushes up and tugs on a part of the metal tube where the water is coming from and suddenly the water disappears, reappearing above them from a large metal circle.

Brendon stares with wide eyes, and he thinks maybe his mouth is agape.

“What, have you never showered?” Ryan teases, laughing as he brushes his wet hand on his leg.

Brendon shakes his head, still staring at the fountain of water coming from above.

“Wait, really? You really have never showered?”

Brendon finally forces his gaze away from the magical source of water and turns to Ryan. The human is frowning, almost concerned. Brendon isn’t sure if he should feel embarrassed or not, but all the same he can feel his face grow warm. He shakes his head again.

“How did you bathe? Your father did let you bathe, didn’t he?” Ryan asks, though his tone is no longer teasing.

Brendon nods, brow furrowing. Of course he bathed. He and Pete and Patrick would rub each other down with seaweed once a week and they all regularly combed each other’s hair.

Ryan nods too, though he looks unsure. “Right, well...alright. I’ll show you, then. Look, all you do is step in here,” he points to the large basin. “And then you, you know, stand under the water and wash off.”

Brendon nods. Sounds easy enough. He glances around, pointing to a plastic bottle on the rim of the basin.

“That’s...shampoo?” Ryan arches a brow.

Brendon tilts his head, squinting slightly.

Ryan’s lips quirk down in a frown. “Shampoo. Like you wash your hair with. You wash your hair?”

Brendon blinks. Wash it? There’s no need for washing your hair when you live underwater, they just comb it to keep the tangles out and make sure bits of kelp aren’t stuck in it.

“Jesus, what the _fuck_?” Ryan whispers, and Brendon thinks he isn’t supposed to hear. “Okay, okay, I’ll, uh—fuck, okay, I’ll show you then, okay? I’m not—I’m not gonna hurt you or anything, alright? Can you just get in there?”

Brendon looks at the tiny little room-like area that has the water spouting down into it and the white basin catching it all and he shrugs, nodding. He doesn’t have any clothes to strip off, so he just steps carefully over the wall of the basin and under the water, shivering at the sudden warmth. He blinks quickly as water falls into his eyes, dripping down his face and off his bangs, and turns to look at Ryan.

Ryan nods. “Right, okay, you can—you can step forward a little, so it’s not in your eyes.”

Brendon nods and inches to the side a bit and smiles brightly at Ryan. If this is a shower, it’s far easier than he’d thought it was going to be, even if he is unsure of how spraying water on himself will make him smell...not like water.

“Good, yeah, now take that—take the shampoo,” Ryan points to the bottle from before. “And then put some in your hands.”

Brendon twists and grabs the bottle, flipping the lid open and tipping it over. Gooey, shiny stuff pours out and lands in a small pool in the palm of his hand; it smells just like Ryan. Brendon grins wide and clenches his fist, watching the goo ooze out between his fingers and drip down onto the floor next to his feet. He notices that the water spraying down is disappearing into a hole in the floor instead of pooling up around him. Humans are kind of incredible sometimes. 

“No, no wait, don’t do that, you put it in your hair, put it—” Ryan reaches forward and takes the bottle, squeezing it and gathering a good amount of the ‘shampoo’ in his hands before rubbing them together. It foams, and then Ryan leans forward to rest his hands on Brendon’s head, presumably getting the goo all in Brendon’s hair. “See? Like this, it’s to clean your hair,” Ryan says, rubbing his hands all over Brendon’s head.

Brendon smiles and nods, blinking quickly as some of the foam gets in his eyes. He blinks again, rubbing at his eyes now because it _stings_.

“Wait, wait, fuck, I’m sorry, here—here, wipe them on this, here’s a towel,” Ryan says.

Brendon reaches out blindly, eyes squeezed shut, and takes whatever Ryan puts in his hands before burying his face in it. After a moment, the pain subsides.

“Yeah, no, soap in your eyes is no fun, I’m sorry.” Ryan looks pained, and a little guilty, so Brendon just shakes his head and smiles.

Ryan scratches his fingers lightly in Brendon’s hair and it makes Brendon’s entire body shiver and erupt in tiny bumps all over his skin, like when he swims in water that’s too cold. It’s nice, though, and he likes it. He closes his eyes, pushing up into Ryan’s hand with a smile.

Ryan laughs softly. “Yeah, I like people washing my hair too. Okay, so now lean your head back, we gotta rinse it out.”

Brendon obeys, tilting his head with his eyes still shut as Ryan guides him back beneath the spray of water. He can feel Ryan’s hands running over his head and lightly squeezing the ends of his hair for a moment before he’s tugged back upright.

“Good okay, now grab me that bottle, the conditioner?” Ryan gestures to a bottle that looks similar to the bottle of shampoo from before.

Brendon grabs it, examining it for just a moment.

“Okay, so you go ahead and pour that in your hands and put it on the ends of your hair, okay? Like the bottom?” Ryan tries.

Brendon nods and squeezes the bottle like Ryan had, and thick, pale liquid squirts into a pile on his hand. He sets the bottle down and rubs his hands together like Ryan had, frowning. This stuff is slippery, and feels weird on his skin.

“It’s okay, it just is good for your hair; makes it shiny,” Ryan reassures.

Brendon looks over, unsure, but he rubs the stuff into his hair all the same, smiling proudly over at Ryan once he’s done.

“Yes, good, now you’re gonna get the soap, that right there,” Ryan points to another bottle, this one bigger and clear with a wrapper around it. “And uh, fuck, hold on, lemme go get you a washcloth, I’ll be right back, okay?”

Brendon nods, and Ryan walks out the door.

Brendon turns and grabs the soap and pours that into his hands curiously, sitting down on the floor of the basin and letting the warm water run down his back. The soap is clear and thinner than the shampoo was, and when he rubs his hands together it foams with lots of bubbles. Brendon grins and pours more into his hands, rubbing them eagerly as more bubbles and white foam are produced. He cups his hands, blowing the bubbles out and watching the foam fall out of his hands and onto his legs.

Glancing around, Brendon finds a metal tube with a strange top, and when he presses the top down white foam, thicker than the bubbles, explodes out of it. Brendon blinks, tossing the can away in surprise and quickly wipes at the foam that’s now all over the walls and his chest and shoulders. It’s creamy and sort of heavy, but Brendon likes how it feels in his hands and he scoops some up, clenching his fists and watching it gush out of the spaces between his fingers. These must be potions that Ryan uses to clean himself, though Brendon never took Ryan for some kind of witch. Maybe witches are different in the human world. Maybe all humans are witches.

“Okay, here I got the—oh, you found the shaving cream.” Ryan blinks, stopping in his tracks and staring down at Brendon, and then at the walls covered in the white cream, and then down at where Brendon again, where a small puddle of water has formed around him that’s covered in bubbles from the soap.

Brendon blushes brightly and quickly pushes himself up to stand, but whatever he was playing with is slick and makes the floor of the basin impossible to stand in. He slips, flailing wildly.

Ryan darts forward, arms outstretched and suddenly Brendon is staring up into Ryan’s face, both of their expressions equally surprised. Water is dripping down from Ryan’s hair onto Brendon’s face from the stream spraying onto his back and head, but Brendon hardly notices. He can feel Ryan’s hands, warm and firm against his skin, and Ryan’s chest pressed flush against his own.

“Are...you okay?” Ryan breathes, straightening and helping Brendon stand on his own. He’s half in the basin now with Brendon, one foot in and one foot on the floor outside the basin.

Brendon nods, ducking his head. Ryan basically just saved his life _again_ and, _again_ , Brendon has made himself look like a helpless fledgling who can’t take care of himself.

“Hey, it’s okay. It gets slippery, trust me, I’ve fallen a million times in there. No worries, alright?” Brendon looks up and Ryan is grinning, so he nods and offers a hesitant smile of his own.

“Let’s get you washed off and then we can go shopping, okay?” Ryan bends down and picks up a small square of cloth that he’d dropped when he’d valiantly rescued Brendon from cracking his head open on the floor.

Brendon nods again, frowning slightly. Ryan’s clothes are all wet, though now Brendon notices that he’s only in some white fabric that encases his legs; it’s kind of like what he was wearing yesterday, but there’s no holes to put his keys in, and they’re shorter, just coming down to above his knee. His chest is entirely bare.

Ryan glances down. “Huh? Oh, it’s not a big deal, I’ll just change boxers when we’re done. Here, take this,” He offers over the tiny bolt of cloth. “And put the soap on it, okay?”

Brendon looks over at the soap, frown only deepening. What if he slips again? He turns and grabs Ryan’s wrist, tugging him closer.

Ryan glances over. “What is it?”

Brendon tugs again, more insistent.

Ryan blinks. “You want me to come in with you?”

Brendon nods, tugging harder, trying to pull Ryan into the basin.

Ryan’s cheeks grow a bright red and he clears his throat. “Ah, uh, well, are you sure? I mean, you don’t think that’s—I mean, uh, are you sure?”

Brendon pushes out his bottom lip, giving Ryan his best pleading look with the wide eyes that Patrick swears he can never resist. He gives Ryan’s wrist one more tug.

“Right, right, okay, I’m coming, see, here I come, see?” Ryan steps over the short wall and stands in front of Brendon, looking...not uncomfortable, but something. Brendon doesn’t know if it’s a bad thing or not. “Now, uh,” He clears his throat again, reaching back and rubbing at the back of his neck. “The soap, you take that, and you put it on this,” He offers over the square of cloth again. It’s light blue, and when Brendon takes it, it feels sort of rough. “And you rub the soap into that.”

Brendon grabs the soap bottle again, eying it warily before he pours some of it carefully into the cloth and then rubs it. It foams again, and Brendon gives a tiny smile. It reminds him of the ocean.

“Now you just rub that on your body, it’ll clean you off.” Ryan’s voice is sort of strained, and his face is still glowing red.It _is_ kind of warm, and there’s steam billowing around them now, so Brendon can understand why Ryan would be getting hot.

He takes the cloth and rubs it over one arm, grinning at the bubbles that are left behind on his skin. He rubs the thing all over his body, and by the time he’s done he’s covered in bubbles and looks like those things that Gabe has described before as ‘polar bears,’ whatever that is; Brendon just remembers being told they were fluffy and white.

“Now rinse it all off, and rinse your hair too,” Ryan says. He’s taken to leaning against the far wall, hair plastered against his forehead and ‘boxers’ stuck against his skin. Brendon can easily see the outline of Ryan’s weapon through the white cloth that has become almost transparent, though something looks...different about it. It’s bigger than Brendon’s, and looks like it’s kind of...sticking out.

Brendon nods and leans his head back, rinsing all of the oily stuff out of his hair and then steps backward to stand beneath the warm spray of water. He glances down, watching the bubbles disappear into the hole in the smooth white floor.

Ryan sighs, and Brendon thinks it sounds almost relieved. He turns, watching as Ryan reaches around him and twists the same thing as before, and the flow of water slows to a stop, disappearing.

“I’ll go grab us some towels, okay? Don’t play with anything else, you’ll get all messy again.” Ryan’s voice isn’t unkind, it’s more like how his mother used to sound when she found Brendon tangled up in a kelp garden that took nearly an hour to get him out of.

Brendon nods seriously and sits back down once Ryan has carefully stepped out of the basin and goes down the hall. The air around him is cold, making more bumps appear on his skin and his teeth clatter loudly as he wraps his arms around himself, waiting. By the time Ryan comes back he’s shaking, but he still smiles up at the human upon his return.

“Shit, I’m sorry, c’mere, c’mon.” Ryan leans down and pulls Brendon up and out of the basin, setting him down and quickly wrapping a piece of thick, soft fabric around him that immediately curbs his chills. “Better?”

Brendon nods, smiling even wider and pulling what must be the ‘towel’ closer around himself. It’s warm, and even better, smells like Ryan.

“I’m sorry it took so long, I was trying not to slip on the hardwood and then Dottie was chasing me, and I had to get these out of the dryer, are you okay?” Ryan asks, eyebrows furrowed and concern etched all across his features.

Brendon nods again. Ryan has a towel like his, though it’s wrapped around his waist, and his hair is sticking up all over the place like he just rubbed the fabric all over his head and then came to find Brendon. To his surprise, Ryan reaches forward and takes the towel from Brendon, carefully rubbing his hands up and down Brendon’s arms and then his chest, drying him off. Lastly, he tosses the it over Brendon’s head and lightly scrubs the towel atop his hair. Brendon blinks quickly once Ryan tugs it back around his shoulders.

Ryan blinks and then bursts out laughing, head tilting back and eyes squinting shut.

Brendon frowns, tilting his head. What in the ocean could Ryan be laughing at? Him? Why is Ryan laughing at him?

Ryan catches his expression and snorts, covering his mouth with his hand and shaking his head. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, just—just look.” He takes Brendon by the shoulders and steers him over to another, smaller basin with a mirror above it. He wipes his hand across the surface, clearing a thin mask of fog that’s over the glass and Brendon peers at his reflection curiously.

He looks about the same as he always has, wide brown eyes and a too-big mouth. Except, now his hair is sticking up all over just like Ryan’s. He can’t help but grin; he looks as if he’s been playing with electric eels; he and Ryan both have fuzzy strands sticking up every which way.

“We’ll brush it and then I’ll grab you some clothes, okay?” Ryan murmurs, nudging Brendon towards the door now. “And then we can go out.”

Brendon nods, glancing back towards his reflection once more; briefly, he wonders if Ryan finds him pretty.

“I hope this goes easier than the shower did,” Ryan murmurs to himself, though when Brendon looks he’s smiling just slightly. “But for some reason, I just really don’t think it will.”


	8. Chapter 8

Ryan tries leading Brendon out of the bathroom and down the hall, but Brendon’s feet are still wet and he’s barely used to walking when they’re dry, so he keeps slipping on the hardwood floor beneath him. After the third time he nearly cracks his head open, Ryan just sighs and scoops him up, making his way towards a door at the end of the hall with Brendon secure in his arms. When they walk into the room, Brendon immediately sees a large bed pushed against the far wall that Ryan then gently deposits him on.

He looks around curiously, spotting strange pieces of art on the walls and dark, blocky furniture; this must be _Ryan’s_ room, which means...he must be in _Ryan’s bed!_  He flops over on one side—arms bound to his side from the way Ryan wrapped him up in the fluffy white towel—and presses his face into the mattress, inhaling. Definitely Ryan’s bed.

“Come on, let’s get you dressed,” Ryan says, grabbing Brendon by the shoulders and pulling him back upright.

Brendon smiles up at him and wriggles, trying to get out of the fabric but only managing to fall on his back now.

Ryan just laughs and unwraps him, taking his hands to help him sit up. “You’re really something else, you know that?”

Brendon’s not sure if ‘something else’ is good or not (Patrick used to call him ‘something else’ when he would find out that Brendon had been up to the surface again, and that certainly wasn’t a term of endearment then) but Ryan’s smiling so he doesn’t dwell on it. Instead, he watches as the human turns and opens another door where what must be all of his clothes are hanging. He pulls out a few hangers and shows them to Brendon.

“Which do you like best?”

Brendon looks at each shirt, considering. Finally, he points to a light blue one that doesn’t have any sleeves.

Ryan nods and offers it to Brendon before turning back to the clothes room and pulling down more hangers.

Brendon pulls the shirt over his head, frowning as his arms get stuck in one of the holes and trap them above his head. He can’t see now, and no amount of wiggling is getting him free.

“You’ve got your hands in the head-hole, you know.” Ryan’s voice sounds in front of him and swiftly the shirt is yanked back over his head and his arms are free. “I don’t know why I’m surprised that you can’t put this on. I shouldn’t be, right?” Ryan asks, fixing the shirt in his hands before pulling it over Brendon’s head and then taking each of his arms and tugging them through different openings.

Brendon bites his lip, dropping his gaze to his naked lap. So far it feels like he’s been catastrophically failing each of these human tests; he couldn’t bathe himself, didn’t like any of Ryan’s food, and now he can’t even get himself dressed.

“Hey, hey,” Ryan reaches down and gently tilts Brendon’s chin up with two fingers. “It isn’t your fault. Whatever it is, the reason you don’t know these things, it can’t be your fault. I'm gonna help you, teach you, okay?”

Brendon tugs at his lip, but nods, and when Ryan offers him a smile, he returns it.

He’ll learn. It may take time, but he’ll figure things out. One day he’ll be able to take a ‘shower’ and put clothes on and eat human food all on his own just like a regular human.

“What about these? Which ones do you like?”

Brendon looks up and now Ryan is holding up different bottoms. Brendon points to a khaki pair of shorts with lots of pockets.

“Alright, here, you take these and I’ll get you some boxers—damn, we’ll need to buy you those, too—and I guess you can wear my flip flops and I’ll wear my sneakers.” Ryan hands over the shorts and goes over to a dresser where he pulls the top drawer open and starts rifling through its contents. After a moment he turns back around and offers Brendon a pair of plain white boxers, much like the ones he was wearing before. “Here.”

Brendon takes them and pushes both legs through one of the holes, frowning slightly; they’re a little tight and he’s not sure how he’s supposed to walk in them.

Ryan doesn’t even say anything this time, he just kneels in front of Brendon and pulls the boxers back down before taking Brendon’s feet and putting one through each hole. “Like that, see?”

Brendon nods and smiles, sliding the boxers up over his waist and beaming proudly.

“Good job.” Ryan laughs. “Now the shorts and we’re almost ready to go.”

Brendon furrows his brow, glancing back over at the shorts. He just put the boxers on, why does Ryan want him to change already? There’s no use questioning it because obviously Ryan knows more about human culture than he probably ever could, so he pushes the boxers back down and grabs the shorts.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Ryan tilts his head, face puzzled.

Brendon looks up, one leg through the shorts and the other halfway there. He tilts his head too.

“You’re supposed to put those on over the boxers. They’re underwear.” Ryan bends down and picks up the discarded pair of ‘underwear’ and hands them back to Brendon, helping him get back out of the shorts.

Brendon blinks, looking at the boxers and then the shorts, gaze flicking back and forth. He’s supposed to put _both_ on? Even if he manages to get a kiss from Ryan and live happily ever after as a human, he’s not sure he’ll ever understand why they need so many layers. Weapon protection, he supposes.

Ryan pulls the boxers back up over his hips and then tugs the shorts up over those. Brendon frowns slightly. It’s a strange feeling, all of this...padding. Not exactly comfortable, and sort of restrictive. But if Ryan can do it, so can he.

“There you go. Now wait here while I get dressed and then we can leave, okay?” Ryan asks, pushing up off of the floor.

Brendon nods, laying back on the bed and sprawling out. It seems being a human isn’t all singing songs and lounging on the beach. When he glances back towards Ryan, he’s in the closet buttoning up a shirt with far more fabric than Brendon’s. He makes getting dressed look like a breeze, stepping through his pants and zipping them up like it’s nothing. And he puts on even more layers than Brendon; over his first shirt he puts another little one on with no sleeves that buttons over his front, _and_ some thick rope-like fabric that he wraps loosely around his neck. It makes Brendon hot to just look at him.

Turning, Ryan’s lips twist into a slight half-smile and he walks back out. “You ready?”

Brendon nods even though he’s not so sure anymore; clothes are far more complicated than he’d originally thought they would be, why can’t everyone just do without?

“Good, come on then.” Ryan offers his hand and Brendon eagerly takes it, pulling himself up off the bed and barely stumbling at all.

Ryan leads him back out into the room he slept in with the couch and tables covered in monster books. He sits down for a moment, pulling what looks to Brendon like thin fabric shoes on over his feet before grabbing another pair, this time seemingly made of leather, and tugging those on too. Humans seem to like doubling things up.

“My flip-flops are over there, you can put those on and then we’ll leave.” Ryan nods over to the door.

Brendon nods and goes to slide his feet back into those Moonforsaken platforms that push between his toes and make him squirm. Still, when Ryan stands and looks over before saying “Hey, good job,” he feels like squirming just a little less.

\---

Apparently, the shop that sells clothes is far enough away that they have to take the car again. Brendon watches out the window as they drive, a wide smile pressed against the glass. He sees lots of people walking around in all kinds of different clothes, some eating, some talking to each other, some speaking into black rectangles like Ryan. To his absolute delight, when they get in the car Ryan reaches over and presses some buttons in front of them and music begins to play. When Brendon gasps softly, eyes widening, Ryan just laughs and says “I assume you haven’t seen a radio before, then?”

The trip is longer than the one they took yesterday, and when they stop this time they’re surrounded by countless what Brendon figures must be cars, though they don’t look anything like Ryan’s. When they get out, Brendon immediately turns towards the largest buildings he’s ever seen; they tower over everything, big and bright and ominous, yet enticing.

“Welcome to the mall.” Ryan grins before beginning to walk towards the conglomeration.

Brendon’s eyes widen and he darts after him, quickly taking his hand to keep up. He doesn’t even notice Ryan blink and look down at the firm hold he has, cheeks flushing before he shakes his head and keeps walking.

The mall is like nothing Brendon has ever seen before. It’s filled with people and noise and light and smells and Brendon becomes immediately overwhelmed by it all. His eyes can’t fixate on anything, they keep darting around to glowing signs he can’t read and incredibly still people with no faces that stand in the windows, unnerving him enough that he bites his lip and presses in closer against Ryan.

“Why don’t we start here?” Ryan asks, nodding to a store with large, blocky letters on its front in black. “Just tell me if you see anything you like, yeah?”

Brendon nods, head twisting around as they walk in. The lights change from a soft, natural glow from the ceiling that’s mostly glass to a bright white that almost makes his eyes hurt. It smells strange in the shop, too, almost sweet, but slightly tangy. Brendon wrinkles his nose.

“Hey, anything I can help you with?” A girl asks from behind a counter.

Brendon turns, blinking. He wonders if there’s a way he can get across that he’d like the lights turned down, or perhaps some fresh air.

“We’re fine, thanks,” Ryan says, tugging Brendon over to a shiny metal rod covered in clothes.

The girl nods, smiling. “Alright, just let me know if you need anything.”

Brendon turns back to Ryan, looking up at him, but the human is busy pushing hangers left and right as he examines different things.

“What about this?” He asks, pulling a hanger off of the rack and holding it up.

It’s a shirt with short sleeves, dark green with a pocket on the front. Brendon shrugs. He supposes it’s good, Ryan seemed to think it worthy of showing him so it must be at least decent.

“We’ll try it on and see what you think.” Ryan nods, folding the shirt over his arm and going back to the other clothes.

Brendon glances around, catching sight of a table with boxes full of shiny things he can’t make out. He grins, tugging the hem of Ryan’s shirt and pointing.

“Okay, you can go look, but don’t wander too far, understand?”

Brendon nods quickly and makes his way over to the stand. The boxes have all sorts of things in them from silver jewelry to multicolored tubes and little bolts of lacy fabric. Brendon reaches in and pulls out a pink egg-shaped sponge. It’s squishy and he grins as he clenches his fist around it. These must be samples like they give at the market back home for you to take with you after shopping. He glances down, noting that his shorts have plenty of pockets, so he shoves the sponge into one happily.

He ends up taking a little from each box; a shiny purple tube that when he twisted open revealed a black brush that smudged ink on his hands, a crystal bottle of sweet-smelling spray that made him cough, but reminded him of Z, a few of the lacy swaths of colored fabrics, and a bracelet with sparkling topaz jewels.

“Hey, I found some stuff, let’s go try it on, alright?” Ryan calls.

Brendon turns, nodding, and follows him towards the back of the store and into a dim hallway with several doors on each side. Ryan pulls him into one and shuts it behind them before hanging up the pile of clothes he’d had in his arms.

“Okay, you want me to stay in here with you while you try stuff on or you want me to wait outside?” He asks.

Brendon frowns and curls his fingers around Ryan’s wrist firmly.

“I figured.” Ryan nods. He turns and takes one of the shirts down. “Now take off what you’ve got on and then try this one.”

Brendon does as he’s told, eagerly stripping down until Ryan gives a small noise and shakes his head.

“No, not the boxers. Just the other stuff.”

Brendon lips twist down in a slight frown, but he nods.

It takes the better part of an hour for him to try on all of the things Ryan picked out for him, and they only end up getting a handful of them.

“You’re going to need pants,” Ryan murmurs as Brendon shoves off a pair that are dark blue, made of stiff, scratchy fabric. “It doesn’t have to be jeans, but it’s not always gonna be hot like this.”

Brendon just huffs, tossing the pants away.

“Ryan?”

Brendon blinks and lifts his head, looking up.

“...yes?” Ryan frowns slightly, tone wary.

“Open the door, it’s me.”

Brendon looks down and sees a pair of feet with bright red toes clad in a pair of shoes with lots of straps and high heels.

“Hold on, Z, Brendon doesn’t have his clothes back on yet,” Ryan calls.

Brendon jerks his shorts back on and yanks the shirt he had on before over his head before Ryan unlocks the door and pushes it open. Z is standing in front of them, blonde hair tied up in an intricate braid and hands on her hips.

“You went on a shopping trip without me?”

“Brendon needs clothes, did you expect me to wait all day for you to get ready just in time for the mall to close?” Ryan asks, rolling his eyes.

Z snorts. “As if it doesn’t take you longer.” She grins, though, tugging at the hem of a shirt that’s far longer than he or Ryan’s, reaching her mid-thigh. It’s white and loose, tighter over her chest before flowing out at her hips. “Well, what did you get him at least?”

“Nothing, yet. We just got here.” Ryan takes the small pile of clothes he and Brendon agreed on and hands them to Z before taking the much larger pile they didn’t and nudges Brendon out the door.

“A lot of tank tops,” Z notes, rifling through the heap.

“He doesn’t like sleeves,” Ryan sighs. “We’re at least going to have to get him a jacket, though.”

“You got one pair of shorts?” Z arches a brow, glancing up.

“He really doesn’t like pants, especially jeans.” Ryan brushes a hand through his hair, shaking his head.

“Well, let’s see if I can help some.” Z smiles and reaches down to take Brendon’s hand. “Mind if I join you, honey?”

Brendon considers. He still hasn’t figured out if he likes Z or not; she was nice to him last night, making sure he was healthy and protecting him from the fish, but she also seems to want Ryan to get rid of him. Still, he knows Ryan likes her and it probably wouldn’t help his situation at this point if he said no, so he nods, if hesitantly.

“Thank you.” Z leans in and presses a kiss to Brendon’s cheek with a _smack_.

Ryan leads them all back out of the hall and towards the girl at the counter; as they leave the dimly lit hall, Brendon ducks his head and blinks at the return of the bright white lights.

“Find everything alright?” The girl asks, taking the clothes from Ryan and starting to slide them beneath a flickering red light in front of her before placing them in crinkling plastic bags Brendon can’t help but glare at. He’s seen them plenty of times, floating in the ocean, or worse, trapped in some poor creature’s mouth.

“Mhm, thanks,” Ryan murmurs absently, digging in his pockets before pulling out a thick square of leather that flips open. He draws a thin plastic card from one of the slots in the leather and offers it to the girl once she finishes putting their clothes in bags.

Brendon watches as she swipes the plastic and clicks a few buttons before handing it back to Ryan. “Have a nice day.”

Ryan nods, pushing the plastic back into its slot and shoving the leather holder into his pocket before taking the bags. “Thanks.”

“Let’s take him to that new place, the one that opened up last week. Maybe he’ll like the pants there better,” Z says, pulling Brendon back towards the store entrance.

Suddenly a loud beeping sound occurs and Brendon’s eyes widen as he looks around frantically.

The girl from the counter walks over, shaking her head. “It’s fine, they just go off sometimes, I checked you out.”

Ryan nods and waves, going out the door.

Brendon’s heart is pounding in his chest, almost to the point of aching.

As Z leads him after Ryan, she turns back and frowns. “Hey, it’s alright. Just an alarm, it happens. You’re okay, no one’s coming after you.” She smiles a little, like she’s made a joke, but Brendon thinks he may be sick. “That’s just for if people steal things, we didn’t steal anything,” Z explains. “Everything is okay.”

Steal things? Brendon blinks and looks down at his pockets. Did he accidentally steal those things? Pulling one of the flaps open, Brendon reaches in and pulls out the crystal bottle of spray and holds it out to Z.

Ryan turns back, blinking. “Where did you—? Oh, fuck.”

Z rolls her eyes. “It’s fine, you didn’t mean to, did you?”

Brendon shakes his head, eyes wide.

“I didn’t think so. We’ll just take it back and no one will get in trouble. Do you have anything else?” She asks.

Brendon reaches in and takes out all of his trinkets, handing over the sponge and tube and fabrics.

“Well damn, you’re good at this. I should be taking you more places.” Z laughs, taking the things. “Panties? Ryan, you better not be turning him into a pervert like you.”

Ryan rolls his eyes. “I do not wear panties, Z, thank you. Please go return that shit so we can keep going; I feel like this is gonna take longer than I hoped.”

As Z walks off with his stolen goods, Brendon blinks hard, trying to fight the burning in his eyes. Does Ryan think he’s a thief now? What if he turns Brendon in to the authorities? Z made it seem like nothing, but she also wanted Ryan to give him away, what if it’s a trick?

Footsteps sound and Brendon looks up to see Ryan standing in front of him, frowning. “Hey, hey. I know you didn’t mean to. You’re not from around here, I get that. They’ll get it too, no one’s in trouble, like Z said. You’re okay, I promise.”

Brendon nods, and the tight ache in his chest loosens slightly. Ryan’s not going to send him away, not yet at least. He’ll do better.

“Okay, we’re clear.” Z walks up, taking Brendon’s hand again and kissing his knuckles. “Shh, no use crying over stolen panties, love.”

Ryan snorts. “For once, she’s right. Come on, if you let me get you some pants, I’ll buy you ice cream.”

Brendon has no idea what ice cream is, but Z promises he’ll love it and Ryan’s eyes are hopeful so he shrugs and nods. It seems that if he’s going to be human, like it or not, he’ll have to wear pants.


	9. Chapter 9

Brendon quickly decides that shopping for clothes is, so far, his least favorite part of being human. Not only does he hate almost everything they make him try on, but flitting from store to store, stumbling after Z as she drags him along by the wrist, gets tiring, fast. When Ryan finally notices that Brendon’s in need of a break and suggests they go sit down for a minute, it’s all Brendon can do not to collapse right then and there on the floor in pure relief. They're settled on a bench in front of a store with glowing, neon pink lights and women clothed in lacy bathing suits much like the bolts of fabric he had accidentally stolen earlier when Ryan kneels down in front of Brendon and sets down the few bags they have.

“I’m going to go get us a snack, alright? I’ll be right back, stay with Z,” he says.

Brendon bites his lip, but Z is smiling so wide at him, her pink lips shining brightly from the lights above, and Ryan’s honey-colored eyes look almost hopeful, so he nods.

Ryan smiles and pats him on the knee before pushing up. “I’ll get you an ice cream—Z, want anything?”

“Frozen yogurt, if there isn’t too long a line, otherwise grab me a pretzel,” Z says.

Ryan nods and gives a small wave to Brendon before walking towards a stand with blue letters on a sign above it. Brendon’s eyes stay on his retreating form before Z snatches his attention back by breaking the silence.

“So,” She hums, scooting a little closer to Brendon so their elbows push. “Having fun?”

Brendon blushes and nods, trying to hide the fact that no, he is not having any fun at all and he would like to leave before they try to put any more disgustingly scratchy pants on him.

Z laughs and shakes her head. “I know you aren’t, I’m sorry. But you don’t wanna be stuck in Ryan’s old clothes, do you? His taste in fashion is questionable at best.”

Brendon couldn’t care less about fashion, he _loves_ being in Ryan’s clothes, even if that does mean he can’t go around in just his skin; they smell like the shampoo he uses and sea mist, the kind that rolls off of waves during cool nights when the Moon shines down bright enough to see down to the ocean floor.

“Just a few more stores, okay? I’d like to find you something you actually really like, even if it is just a bracelet or something,” Z says softly. “I know this can’t be easy for you, all of these new things at once, but you’re taking it like a champ.”

Brendon gives a small smile, nodding. Maybe Z isn’t so bad, even if she did try to put him in some ridiculously long pants that bloomed out like a whale’s fin and were a repulsive orange.

“Frozen yogurt place was closed, so I got you a pretzel, and some ketchup and mustard, and this is for you,” Ryan says as he walks up, offering Brendon a cone wrapped in a napkin with a white sphere on top.

Brendon tilts his head as he takes it, turning to Z.

“It’s ice cream, try it. You just lick it, like this,” Z says, gently taking Brendon’s wrist in her hand and tugging it closer so she can swipe her tongue across the ball of white. “It’s good!”

Brendon looks back down at the cone in his hand skeptically, arching a brow before sticking his tongue out and very slowly licking the ice cream.

Immediately he pulls back and shakes his head, pushing the cone at Z; it’s cold and his tongue burns for a moment before he feels the coolness melt in his mouth and turn into something sweet. Blinking, he smacks his lips for a second before taking another lick. Now that he’s expecting the cold, it isn’t so bad and he even kind of likes it.

“Should have warned you it was cold, I forget you don’t like that very much,” Ryan says, looking apologetic.

He’s holding a bag of yellow pieces of...something that look fluffy and smell salty, even all the way over there. Brendon points at it and Ryan glances down.

“Oh, this? It’s popcorn, you wanna try?”

Brendon nods and reaches out with his free hand to carefully take one of the yellow pieces and pop it into his mouth. Salt bursts across his tongue along with something else, something smooth. The popcorn is crunchy as he bites down and tilts his head back and forth, deciding. After a moment he nods and reaches out for more.

Ryan laughs and nudges Brendon with his knee to make him scoot over a little before he sits down and offers him the bag. “I think I may have figured you out.”

Brendon shoves another fistful of popcorn into his mouth and tilts his head.

“You like cheap junk food, that’s what I’m going to have to feed you.” Ryan grins, popping some popcorn into his own mouth. “Cocoa puffs, ice cream, popcorn—I mean, at least you’re not going to cost very much.”

Brendon smiles and licks at his ice cream again, finding that the taste of the sweet coldness mixed with the bitter saltiness of the popcorn makes quite a tasty combination.

“You wanna try some pretzel?” Z asks.

Brendon turns to see her holding out a piece of what looks like brownish dough dipped in something yellow.

“It’s salty like the popcorn.” she smiles.

Brendon takes the small piece of bread and tosses the whole thing in his mouth, almost immediately shaking his head. Whatever the yellow stuff is makes his tongue burn and curl up; his nose wrinkles and he turns to Z helplessly.

“Alright, alright, here, put in this,” she says holding out an unfolded napkin that Brendon promptly spits the pretzel out into.

“A no on pretzels then?” Ryan laughs softly.

Z shrugs, wadding up the napkin and throwing it into a black metal tub next to her. “Maybe it was the mustard.”

Brendon licks almost angrily at his ice cream now, trying to get the taste of the ‘mustard’ off his tongue before it makes a permanent home there.

“Finish up and then we’ll keep looking for clothes, sound good?” Ryan asks.

Brendon sighs, but nods. His feet hurt and he thinks that maybe going back to Ryan’s house and curling up on that couch wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

Ryan smiles like he knows exactly what’s going through Brendon’s head. “I know this isn’t fun, but we’ve only managed to find you a handful of shirts and one pair of pants, and those were pajama pants.”

Brendon shrugs, continuing to lap at his ice cream; he had liked those pants, they were soft and had fish on them. He turns to take another handful of Ryan’s popcorn as he finishes off the ice cream.

“You can eat that part, you know,” Z says, pointing to the cone in Brendon’s hand. “Just bite it.”

Brendon glances down and then back up at Ryan, who nods. It’s hard and crunchy when he bites into it, and doesn’t taste like much of anything besides maybe the slightest hint of sweet. All in all, not worth wasting his time on, so he offers it to Z who just laughs and throws it into the metal bin with the napkin he’d spit his pretzel into.

“Here, you’ve got grease on your mouth,” Ryan murmurs, gently turning Brendon’s head towards him with a hand on his chin.

Brendon’s cheeks flame a hot, bright red as Ryan swipes his thumb across Brendon’s bottom lip.

“Got it,” he says quietly, gaze flicking down to Brendon’s mouth for a moment before darting away entirely.

Brendon swallows hard and nods, trying to think of anything that isn’t Ryan touching him, Ryan kissing him, Ryan…

“If everyone’s done then, let’s go. We should try to leave before traffic gets bad and he still needs underwear and shoes, and more pants of course,” Z says, standing and brushing off her overlarge white shirt.

Ryan clears his throat and nods, standing as well, if quicker than Z had. “Dottie hates being left alone for too long.”

Z smiles and offers her hand to Brendon, who takes it and pulls himself up.

At the next store they go into, Ryan goes off to flip through a rack of clothes that seems to hold only pants, to Brendon’s dismay, while Z tugs him off in the opposite direction.

“See anything you like?” She asks, looking more than hopeful.

Brendon looks around for anything he could possibly stand to wear. Finally, he tugs a hanger off of the steel rod and offers it to Z with a smile. It’s a long shirt, like the one she’s wearing, in soft shades of pink with no sleeves.

Z blinks, eyes widening a fraction before she smiles and nods. “Yeah, okay, we can try that on. Let me see if they have it in your size.”

Brendon nods and keeps sifting through the rack of clothes, pulling a few more things out to show to Z.

After a few minutes, she nods to herself. “I think we’ve got enough for now, let’s try these on and see if Ryan’s found you anything and we’ll go from there, good?” She asks.

Brendon smiles brightly and nods, following after her as she heads towards the back. Once they’re presented with a room and Z has shut the door (the door must always be shut before he tries clothes on, he’s learned) Brendon strips down and waits for Z to hand him something.

Turning and seeing him clad in only the boxers Ryan gave him, she laughs softly. “You’re an old pro now, huh?”

Brendon grins too and takes the first thing she hands him, one of the long shirts he had picked out that looked similar to hers, except the sleeves are long and it’s a pale grey, and soft. He tugs it over his head and pushes his hands through the sleeves as Z helps him pull it down over his abdomen.

“Well, what do you think?” She asks, turning him towards the tall mirror hanging against the wall.

Brendon twists this way and that, admiring himself for a moment before nodding. He likes this one, how the fabric feels on his skin and how he can move his legs freely.

“Then we’ll take it.” Z nods. “Give that one to me and try this one on now.”

By the time they’ve gone through a good number of the things they brought in (and even decided to buy some), there’s a knock on the door and Ryan’s voice sounds.

“It’s me, I found him more pants.”

“Just a second,” Z calls back as she helps Brendon zip up the back of a soft green longshirt with buttons down the front.

Patting his bare shoulder, she smiles and pulls the door open for Ryan who stares with wide eyes and immediately drops the pile of pants that was in his hands.

“What do you have on him?” He cries, stepping in and shutting the door behind him.

Z frowns, pink lips turning down. “He chose it, he likes it.”

“A _dress_?” Ryan hisses.

“Don’t you start with me, Ryan Ross,” Z says firmly, crossing her arms and taking a step in front of Brendon as if to protect him, despite her being a good head shorter than him. “He can wear whatever he wants and if you won’t buy it for him, I will.”

Brendon flushes and drops his head, staring down at his bare feet on the cool tile floor. Ryan thinks he looks _ugly_ in his outfit, he _hates_ it. His stomach turns, and he suddenly feels more uncomfortable than he has all day. Eyes burning hot, Brendon tugs at the hem of his ‘dress’ and shifts, trying to force his face to remain smooth and not crumple.

A hand comes into his vision, wrapping around his own and squeezing. Looking up, he catches Z’s face peering into his with concern flooding her brown eyes.

“You hurt his feelings,” she accuses, twisting around to glare at Ryan while keeping her hand tight in Brendon’s.

Ryan blinks and glances at Brendon, biting his lip. “I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “I didn’t mean to.”

Turning back to Brendon, Z cups his face in her hands and plants a chaste kiss on his mouth. “Don’t you worry, baby, you look beautiful.”

“I really didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” Ryan says, taking a step forward. “You just...surprised me is all.”

Brendon nods, offering a watery smile and spreading out the bottom of his dress to show Ryan the pretty pale teal color of it.

“It’s nice.” Ryan nods, smiling too. “Suits you.”

“We have some shirts and some dresses, but we didn’t find any pants,” Z says, scooping up the clothes they’ve decided to keep and laying them in a pile on a chair behind Ryan.

“I found pants.” Ryan turns and picks up the discarded pairs he had dropped before. “You don’t have to like them all, but will you just pick two? For me?”

His eyes fix on Brendon’s and it’s all Brendon can do not to leap at him and smash their lips together, or at least maybe hold his hand. He doesn’t even notice himself nod, but then Z is there to help him get out of his dress and Ryan’s handing him a pair of black pants in that same awful scratchy fabric they’ve been giving him.

In the end, he chooses the black pants and a pair of dark blue, just to satisfy Ryan, and once they’re finally heading back to the car with bags in hand, he can feel himself relaxing. After hugging Z goodbye with a promise of seeing her soon, Brendon slides into Ryan’s car and leans back, letting his eyes fall shut for just a moment. He hears Ryan shut the door behind him and then open his own before getting in and starting the car.

“Hey.”

Brendon opens his eyes and turns to smile at Ryan.

“You really did look nice,” Ryan murmurs, his cheeks pink, though from heat or embarrassment Brendon can’t tell. “In your dress. It was pretty, you looked pretty.”

Beaming, Brendon leans forward and lightly brushes his lips across Ryan’s cheek before settling back into his seat and tugging at his bottom lip to bite back a wide smile. All the way home that smile threatens to break across his face at any moment.


	10. Chapter 10

A massive, echoing explosion is what wakes Brendon in the middle of the night. He bolts upright, eyes wide and a silent shout on his lips as he looks around for the source of the noise. Ryan’s living room is just as he left it a few hours ago when he laid down: empty of anyone but himself and with a few shopping bags from their trip piled in the far chair. There’s a flash of light that illuminates the entire room, washing it out in stark black and white, and then a few moments later the sound comes again, loud and booming. Brendon jerks and twists his head wildly, looking for anything that could be making the terrible noise and finding absolutely nothing.

Off towards Ryan’s room, he can hear the muffled sound of Dottie barking and without thinking he pushes up off of the couch and stumbles towards it; as he gets closer, Dottie gets louder. Light flashes again and throws his shadow against the wall, elongating it and making him look like some kind of monster. He moves a little faster, gently pushing at Ryan’s door that’s already slightly cracked open.

“You too?” Ryan asks.

He’s sitting up in bed rubbing his eyes with one hand and petting down Dottie’s back with the other, sheets pooled around his waist and chest bare.

Brendon twists his hands, biting his lip and nodding. Another flash of light turns Ryan’s room completely white before the same loud boom echoes around them making Brendon flinch and squeeze his eyes shut.

He hears Ryan sigh and opens them again, trying to force his body to stop trembling.

“Okay, okay, come on,” Ryan says, patting the side of his bed and scooping Dottie up, laying her in his lap.

Brendon blinks, gaze flicking to the mattress and back to Ryan.

“Come on,” Ryan repeats. “You can come lay down, too.”

Brendon quickly crawls up onto the bed and as close to Ryan as he dares, not wanting to push his luck. Dottie wriggles over and licks his hand and he smiles, just slightly.

“She’s afraid of thunderstorms too,” Ryan says softly, running his long fingers down the dog’s head.

Brendon glances towards the window where rain has begun to pelt loudly against the glass. A storm? They never sounded like this in the ocean; occasionally he’d hear a soft thud, perhaps a small, brief flash of light, but not this powerful roar or these violent flares.

“It can’t hurt you, though,” Ryan adds, looking up at Brendon. “Not here; we’re safe.”

Brendon isn’t so sure, but Ryan’s been kind enough to let him stay in his home—and now his bed as well—so he doesn’t argue.

“What if I turn the lights on, would that help?” Ryan asks, shifting Dottie over so she can run across the mattress to Brendon and jump up on his chest.

Brendon glances around the room before nodding; maybe the shadows won’t seem so big and dark with more lights.

Ryan pushes up, adjusting the red plaid pajama pants that have become twisted around his waist before walking over to the wall and flicking a switch up. Nothing happens and Brendon tilts his head.

“The power’s out,” Ryan sighs, shaking his head. “That’s okay, I have some candles. You just stay here, okay?”

Brendon bites his lip, but Dottie jumps up and licks his cheek so he nods; he can be brave for a few minutes without Ryan.

“Be right back,” Ryan says before turning and going down the hall.

More ‘thunder’ rolls and Brendon hugs Dottie close to him, petting her velvety ears and focusing on how soft they are instead of how painful it would be if the house came crashing down on them. The dog gives a small whimper and he nods, pressing a kiss to the top of her head and cradling her against his chest. Without thinking he starts to count how many seconds Ryan’s been gone.

At five, another flare of bright white light nearly blinds him. At seventeen, he wonders if it’s him shaking so hard or Dottie. At twenty-three, he begins to silently sing a lullaby in his head that his mother used to croon to him during nights he couldn’t sleep for fear one of the sea monsters his older brothers used to tell him about would come and snatch him from his bed. By the time twenty-nine seconds have passed another flash of light followed by the loudest boom of thunder yet encompasses the room and Brendon scoops Dottie up and runs right out the door, nearly crashing into Ryan.

“Hey, hey it’s alright,” Ryan says quickly. “Come on, I’ve got the candles and some more blankets, let’s go lay back down.”

Brendon clutches Dottie close against him, leaning his cheek on her soft head as he follows after Ryan and climbs back up onto the bed. For a moment, he’s able to forget his rampant fears as he curiously watches Ryan walk around the room and set little jars on the table beside his bed, the windowsill, and his dresser. Each time he sets one down, he bends over and there’s a small click before the jars light up, something inside of them flickering with a warm colored glow. After he finishes lighting each of the jars, he gets back up into bed next to Brendon and yawns.

“Good now?” He asks.

Brendon carefully sets Dottie down, who trots back over to Ryan, and then he crawls over Ryan’s lap to peer into the glass jar with its flickering light.

“Ever seen a candle before?” Ryan asks through another yawn.

Brendon shakes his head and leans in closer, reaching down to try and grab the light. Immediately hot pain flares in his fingertips and he yanks his hand back, eyes wide and shining.

“Hey, hey!” Ryan cries, sitting up. “No, you can’t touch it, that’s hot!”

Brendon pushes out his bottom lip, offering his throbbing fingers to Ryan.

“I know, they’re burnt, that’s what happens when you touch fire,” Ryan sighs, gently taking Brendon’s hand and turning it over to examine. “You’re okay, it isn’t that bad; I don’t even think it’ll blister. You want some medicine?”

Brendon nods, cradling his injured hand against his chest and blinking back tears that threaten to run down his cheeks.

Ryan pushes up again, though this time Dottie hops after him as he goes to the bathroom and returns with a small box.

“Don’t cry,” he murmurs, opening the box and taking out a small tube that he twists open and pushes some clear goo out of. “I promise it won’t hurt that long. I’m sorry, I should have told you not to touch it.”

Brendon shakes his head, letting Ryan rub the goo onto his fingers and then wrap tiny little bandages around them. He shouldn’t be acting like a Moonstruck guppy, putting his nose into dark caverns and not expecting to get bit by the sleeping eel that rests there.

“All better,” Ryan says, patting his hand and then closing the box before setting it next to the candle on the table beside his bed.

Brendon nods, looking down at his hand; already the pain is beginning to ebb away, even if his fingers feel slightly stiff from the bandages.

“You wanna try and get some sleep?” Ryan asks, brushing a hand through hair that’s already sticking up in a few different directions.

Brendon isn’t sure he can with the storm still raging outside and his burnt skin, but he lays down all the same knowing that Ryan won’t try to sleep until he does; the human has already been so kind to him, how could Brendon protest a single request?

In the end, it turns out he can sleep, because once his head hits the pillow Dottie curls up between him and Ryan and he does just that as soon as his eyes fall shut.

\---

The next morning, Brendon finds he’s the first awake this time. Sunlight is filtering through the opaque red curtains in Ryan’s room as if there had never been a storm at all, and its light casts a soft glow across the bed. When Brendon sits up and looks around, he sees Ryan still fast asleep, curled on his side around Dottie with one hand on her back, their breath coming slow and steady. The Sun on his back makes his skin seem almost golden, and Brendon finds himself wanting to press his lips against the spot the light hits to see if it’s as warm as it looks.

Through sheer force of willpower he doesn’t, of course, but instead rubs his eyes and stretches for a moment before rolling carefully out of bed so as not to wake Ryan or Dottie. The bare wood floor isn’t as cold on the soles of his feet as it seemed the night before—instead, it seems nearly lukewarm as he wriggles his toes and makes his way over to Ryan’s dresser. There’s a mirror against the wall that casts his reflection back at him, and to his surprise, he looks quite a mess.

His hair is sticking up every which way, poking in different directions as if someone had put sea snail goo in it. He never had this sort of issue living in the ocean; hair was always flowing around in the water and no one worried about it looking neat or nice. Gently trying to pat the stray locks back down, Brendon notices that he still has the bandages Ryan gave him wrapped around his fingertips. Flexing his hands, he notes that the skin still aches, so he doesn’t try to take them off yet. Instead, he gazes into the mirror and twists his head this way and that way, taking in his features. There’s a large red crease on his cheek where it must have been pressed into the pillow, and his eyes seem an overbright dark-brown. His cheeks are flushed, and his lips seem slightly chapped, little bits of skin peeling off. Overall, he’s not a beautiful sight to behold in the early morning, especially not for one’s potential true love.

There’s no time to go try and fix himself up, however, because movement out of the corner of his eye makes him twist around to see Ryan sitting up now and scratching lightly at his chest. Dottie is yawning wide, long pink tongue lolling out, and Ryan blinks sleepily as he pets a hand down her head.

“Morning,” he mumbles, lightly smacking his lips. “Am I only going to get you to wear clothes when we go in public then?”

Brendon blinks and glances down, noting that he is indeed only in his skin. Ryan doesn’t sound as uncomfortable as he usually does at the prospect, though, so Brendon figures maybe it’s okay to not wear clothes once you know somebody better. He looks back up at Ryan, smiling sheepishly and offering a shrug; he’d gone to bed with his fish pajama pants on, but somewhere between falling asleep and waking up to the storm he must have kicked them off.

Ryan gives a small laugh, his voice rough with sleep. “It’s fine for sleeping, I suppose, but could you at least put something on during the day?”

Brendon sighs, the small burst of air making his hair puff up out of his eyes for a moment, but he nods. You’ve got to be willing to make sacrifices for the ones you love.

“Thank you,” Ryan hums, pushing the sheets off of him and standing now, patting his thigh for Dottie as he walks past Brendon and into the hall. “Come on, once you’ve got some pants on I’ll make you breakfast. Clothes for food, that’s fair, right?”

Brendon rolls his eyes, but follows along and scoops his patterned pajama pants up off the floor once they reach the living room, tugging them over his legs and onto his waist. He gestures at them with both hands, arching a brow at Ryan.

“Yes, I’m happy now, thank you,” Ryan says simply.

Brendon sticks out his tongue, but he’s still smiling as he follows Ryan into the kitchen.

“You wanna help me feed Dottie?” Ryan asks, turning to smile over his shoulder.

Brendon flushes brightly and nods.

“Okay, then you go get me her bowl right there,” Ryan nods to the ground where a pink flower-patterned plastic bowl sits beside the table. “And bring it to me please.”

Brendon nods again, walking over and kneeling down to pick the bowl up and bring it back to Ryan.

“Thank you, now set it on the counter,” Ryan hums, going over to where he keeps the cereal and retrieving a large bag with a picture of what Brendon assumes must be another dog, though this one is an auburn color with a much longer body than Dottie.

He sets the bowl on the counter and watches Ryan open the large bag and scoop out a cupful of brown, pebble-shaped bits that he dumps into Dottie’s bowl before setting it back down on the floor. The dog immediately rushes forward, shoving her face into the dish, and loud crunching sounds fill the kitchen for a moment before Ryan laughs.

“She always acts like I don’t feed her twice a day,” he says, shaking his head. “What a drama queen.”

Brendon smiles and watches the small dog inhale her food, kneeling down to pet her head for a moment.

“She must really like you,” Ryan notes. “Usually if I try to touch her while she’s eating she’ll bite me.”

Brendon blinks and quickly pulls his hand back, standing.

“It’s not like it hurts,” Ryan adds. “She just doesn’t like being bothered while she eats.”

Brendon nods, though he takes a small step back from Dottie just in case.

“Are you hungry?” Ryan asks, a small smile on his lips.

Brendon nods, eagerly pointing to the door where Ryan keeps his ‘puffs’.

Rolling his eyes, Ryan goes to the pantry and opens the door back up, depositing the bag of dog food and then pulling the box of cereal down, peeking in. “Bad news, my friend. We’re all out.”

Brendon frowns, walking forward and snatching the box away from Ryan to look inside. There are only a few crumbs and some dust at the bottom. Brendon looks up at Ryan, eyes accusing as he holds up the empty cardboard box.

“You ate it all!” Ryan cries, throwing his hands up. “What do you want me to do?”

Brendon shakes the empty box, frowning.

“We don’t have anymore,” Ryan insists. “I’m just gonna have to buy another box later on.”

Brendon’s frown only deepens and his brow furrows as he shakes the box again, harder.

Ryan sighs, looking around. “Alright, alright, we can go grocery shopping. I’m basically out of everything else anyway, we would have starved within a few days, I suppose.”

Brendon shakes the box once more, arching a brow.

“Yes, that means we can get more Cocoa Puffs, but you have to put some clothes on before we can go,” Ryan says, waving a hand.

Brendon nods, tossing the box away and running off to the living room where his new clothes still lay in their bags. He pulls a few out, laying them on the chair before choosing a pair of those awful, scratchy blue pants and a pink shirt with no sleeves and a pocket on the front; if Ryan’s going to be nice enough to get him more puffs, he can at least wear pants today.

“I’m gonna go get dressed, I’ll be back and then we can leave, okay?” Ryan calls.

Brendon nods, pulling his shirt over his head. The pants are a struggle, and he ends up on the floor kicking his legs helplessly for a few minutes, but eventually he gets them pulled up and over his hips and even fastened properly by the time Ryan comes back in darker pants and another loop of fabric resting around his neck. 

“We’re gonna have to do something about your hair,” Ryan says, walking over and straightening Brendon’s shirt a little before stepping back.

Brendon tilts his head, but Ryan just takes his hand and tugs him down the hall and towards the bathroom. In the mirror, Brendon’s hair is still wildly sticking up and he frowns.

“It’s alright, just a little bedhead,” Ryan says, picking something up off of the sink and handing it to Brendon. “Here, you can brush it while I go find our shoes; I think Dottie made off with them in the middle of the night.”

Brendon looks down at the object in his hand, a strange black thing with lots of spikes and a handle. He looks back up at Ryan, offering it back.

“You’ve never used one of these before?” Ryan asks, voice soft as he takes it back and then twists Brendon back so he’s facing the mirror.

Brendon shakes his head, watching as Ryan holds the object and runs it down over his head. His hair smooths down neatly with each stroke and Brendon grins.

“Getting your hair brushed is nice,” Ryan agrees, smiling at him through the mirror. Patting Brendon’s head, he sets the ‘brush’ back down and nods to the door. “Let’s go before you starve.”

Brendon nods and follows him down the hall, waiting patiently as Ryan locates their shoes, finally finding them underneath his bed. Yesterday they had bought him what Z called ‘sneakers’, black shoes with white laces that didn’t even bother his toes at all, even if they did squeeze his feet a little. Ryan helps him get them on and then ties the laces in a neat bow before pulling his own shoes on and grabbing his keys. 

“We’ll be back!” He calls to Dottie, who is now lounging on the floor, half-asleep in a post-breakfast doze.

Brendon smiles and waves at her before following Ryan out the door.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like it's been forever since I posted an update so thank you guys for being so patient!! <3

Despite not having any sort of idea as to what a “grocery” store is, Brendon is still practically vibrating with excitement at the prospect of going somewhere new with Ryan. After all, this is the place his puffs come from, how could it be anything less than fantastic?

Occasionally, he turns and catches Ryan looking at him with an amused sort of smile, which only makes his cheeks flush bright and his own lips stretch wide in a pleased grin as he quickly looks back out the window. Most of the drive there is spent that way: Brendon pretending to watch the blurs of color outside, which he knows must be other moving cars, only to sneak a sidelong glance over at Ryan and receive an arched brow paired with an almost-smirk that he promptly spins his flaming face away from.

By the time Ryan is turning into a spot between a large white beast of a car with a long backend and a small, almost cute light blue one, Brendon is dizzy from twisting his head back and forth so fast. As Ryan climbs out of the car and comes over to open Brendon’s door for him, Brendon takes a moment to gather himself, willing his cheeks to return to their natural color.

Once he’s clambered his way out of the car, Brendon smooths down his shirt, toying with the small front pocket over his chest and watching Ryan press down on a round black object in his fingers that’s attached to his keys. The car loudly beeps and flashes behind them, causing Brendon to jolt and whirl around, staring at it with wide eyes.

Ryan laughs softly. “I’m sorry, I should have warned you. I was just locking it is all.”

Brendon nods slowly, making his way back to Ryan’s side and glancing back over his shoulder warily. He doesn’t bother trying to ask how Ryan locked his vehicle without using a key; many things Ryan does are a mystery to him, such as the plastic stick with a brush on the end that he spreads white goo over and places in his mouth. As he reaches for Ryan’s hand, his fingers bump the round object and he looks down, pointing.

“The keys?” Ryan asks, looking down as well.

Brendon grins, remembering the small pocket on the front of his shirt and gesturing to it now.

“You wanna hold them?” Ryan clarifies.

Brendon nods eagerly, reaching for them with wriggling fingers.

“Alright, but don’t lose them or we won’t have a way to get back home,” Ryan chuckles, handing the cool, jagged pieces of metal over.

Brendon’s expression is a firm mask of solemnity as he cradles the keys carefully in his hands before depositing them in his pocket and patting his chest securely.

Ryan’s lips twitch, though Brendon can’t fathom what could possibly be funny about the possibility of them not being able to get home. He takes Ryan’s hand all the same, though, and laces their fingers together as they walk towards a large building bustling with people filing in and out.

As they approach it, Brendon notices that there are no doors, only large glass panes that Ryan continues to walk towards, as if he intends to go right through them. It isn’t until they’re just upon them that the panes swoosh to either side, leaving a large gap for them to enter. Brendon gasps, twisting to look over his shoulder and watch them slide right shut again. He swiftly wrenches his hand away from Ryan’s and runs back over to the spot they were standing before; to his delight, the doors glide open again. He quickly finds out that if he hops back and forth between one certain spot, the doors will rapidly open and close with the same little woosh of air noise. Unfortunately, he only gets a few good jumps in before Ryan’s taking his hand and dragging him away.

“You can’t play with those, other people use them too,” he chides, though Brendon can detect a hint of mirth in his tone. “What if they broke? We’d be stuck in here and they’d be stuck out there.”

The thought of being trapped in the place where his puffs come from doesn’t exactly bother Brendon, especially if he’s going to be stuck with Ryan the whole time, but it would be unfair to keep other people away from the puffs they obviously came here for as well.

Once they’re actually inside, he notices that this place isn’t nearly as big as the mall was, but it seems like it holds far more than the other shopping center ever could. There are rows upon infinite rows of shelves filling the place, and the shelves themselves are absolutely stuffed with countless things, none of which Brendon recognizes.

A constant beeping noise comes from the front where he sees humans wearing identical clothing in little stalls taking items from an array of _other_ humans in different clothes to place them in plastic bags. Brendon wrinkles his nose, fighting the instinct to bare his teeth at those awful monstrosities that end up in some poor sea turtle’s mouth.

“We’ll need to get a cart, first.” Ryan’s voice snaps him out of his dark thoughts and he glances over to where the human is pointing to a group of what looks like the sort of cages humans contain themselves in to go beneath the water around sharks, though these are on tiny wheels and contain no top.

Brendon tilts his head curiously, but lets Ryan pull him over and watches as he tugs one out with a metallic _clang!_

“Ready?” He asks, offering a smile.

Brendon glances around; he doesn’t _see_ any great whites prowling around, and he isn’t quite sure how they could be on land in any case, but Ryan obviously knows best in this situation so he clambers up into the cage and hugs his knees, looking up at Ryan expectantly.

Ryan arches a brow. “With you in there, we won’t have any room for groceries.”

Brendon frowns slightly, looking down at himself and then around at the other humans; they’ve all filled the shark cages with various objects and are pushing them around.

He swallows, gripping the sides of the cage—no, this must be some kind of moving _basket._ As he moves to stand, the basket begins to wobble beneath him unsteadily; immediately he tries to balance himself, arms windmilling, but after a moment he topples over the edge of the metal cage and suddenly hits something warm and solid.

Ryan gives a soft “oof” as his arms wrap around Brendon, but he steadies them both and for a moment all Brendon can see is slightly tangled chestnut hair falling into warm, dark honey-colored eyes; he could drown in those eyes, he’s positive.

After a second, pink flushes across Ryan’s skin and he pulls back, lips twisting into a smile that looks almost nervous. “Come—um—come on then, let’s go get you some cereal,” he mumbles, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck and looking anywhere and everywhere except for at Brendon.

Brendon nods slowly, going to reach for Ryan’s hand but thinking better of it at the last second and drawing back instead.

After a moment, Ryan nods to himself and takes the metal basket, pushing it towards one of the numerous aisles filling the store.

As they go down one, Brendon looks on either side of himself and takes in all of the bright colors surrounding them on boxes and glass jars and various packages of things he doesn’t recognize at all. Reaching out, he pulls a heavy blue paper bag off one of the shelves and offers it to Ryan.

“We don’t need any flour,” Ryan says with a small, endearing smile.

Brendon blinks and nods like he knows exactly what ‘flour’ is and replaces the bag, pulling an equally heavy white one into his hands now. He offers that to Ryan instead, relieved that the human is looking at him again and even appearing happy as he does.

“Or sugar,” Ryan adds, smile widening slightly. “I have a list, how about I tell you what we need and you put it in the cart?” He tries, gently taking the ‘sugar’ from Brendon and setting it back on the shelf.

Brendon nods, grinning, and follows after Ryan as they turn a corner and head down the next aisle.

Immediately, he catches sight of a familiar brown box with a bird smiling broadly on its front and points eagerly, tugging at Ryan’s sleeve and jumping up and down.

“I know, I see,” Ryan laughs. “Go on, then, go get one.”

Brendon’s grin stretches so wide it makes his face hurt and he runs over, snatching up the box and holding it to his chest.

“Alright, alright,” Ryan snorts. “Come put it in the cart, you can’t carry it around like a baby the whole time.”

Brendon sticks his tongue out, hugging the box of puffs a little tighter before carefully laying them in the basket.

“You should be nice to me,” Ryan points out. “I am the one buying that for you.”

Brendon blinks and turns, quickly clasping Ryan’s hand in both of his, squeezing an apology into his palm. If Ryan made him put the puffs back, he wouldn’t protest, but he might cry.

Surprise flashes briefly across Ryan’s features before melting into something like concern, or perhaps alarm. “I was only kidding,” he says quickly. “Be as mean to me as you want.”

Brendon’s lips drop down into a frown and he lets go of Ryan’s hand to bring his own up, pressing it against the side of the human’s face. He can only hope his firm expression conveys the fact that he would never, _ever_ be mean to Ryan.

Ryan’s cheeks begin to flush the same dark pink as before, so Brendon pats his face gently before pulling back and pointing to the cart. They still have more to get.

\---

The grocery store proves to be full of wonders; Brendon makes Ryan tell him what nearly every single thing on the endless shelves is and to his absolute pure delight, at some spots scattered around the store there are small tables where people offer little bits of food to the surrounding humans. Brendon got to taste sour juice that’s bright orange, a crunchy brown piece of triangle with chunky red sauce that made his tongue burn slightly, and a small spongy thing with pink swirled over the top that was so sweet Brendon could have laughed. When he tried taking a few more of those, Ryan had to drag him away and explain that you’re only allowed one; it seemed entirely unfair to Brendon, but he didn’t argue.

Once Ryan decides that they have everything they need, he leads them over to the beeping stalls and gets behind a woman pushing a basket that contains not only a multitude of things Brendon didn’t even know existed, but also a tiny, wriggling, beautiful human fledgling.

Immediately he whirls around to pull at Ryan’s arm and point.

“Hm? The baby? She’s cute, you like babies?” Ryan asks, glancing up from his phone.

Brendon turns back to see the baby waving a tiny hand in the air and offering him a mostly toothless grin. His cheeks flush and he twists back to Ryan, desperate; what Moonblessed aisle do you get one of _those?_ In the ocean, you have to find another merperson and mate with them beneath a full Moon in warm, gentle shallows to make a fledgling; if he knew you could just _buy_ one on the surface he would have gone to make a deal with William cycles ago!

“Fucking shit,” Ryan groans suddenly. “Z’s birthday party is tomorrow, I forgot I’m supposed to pick up snacks. You stay here, I’ll be right back,” he says, shaking his head and quickly darting back towards the aisles.

Brendon doesn’t even have time to protest before he finds himself alone with the metal basket, surrounded by loud beeps and humans he doesn’t know.

“Did it hurt?”

Brendon blinks and turns back around to see a thin human with light brown hair that falls to his shoulders and large black rectangles over his eyes that appear to hold glass.

He’s smiling at Brendon and nods up to the ceiling. “When you fell from Heaven, I mean.”

Brendon looks up too, though he doesn’t see anything.

The man laughs and shakes his head. “You’re cute. What’s your name?”

Brendon can feel his cheeks heat up. Cute? He can’t help but feel a small smile tug at his lips. Humans are just so nice, so free, so...human. Brendon can’t think of one he’s met or seen that he didn’t like, except maybe the ones who throw their trash into the ocean like they don’t have piles and piles of it everywhere else they could put it—or so Gabe told him. And here this one is calling him cute; newly-hatched sea turtles are cute, maybe this human likes them too.

“Shy, huh?” The man asks.

Brendon’s cheeks begin to grow hotter and he ducks his head in hopes that maybe the human won’t notice.

“That’s okay; why don’t I take you out, loosen you up a bit? I promise you won’t be shy for long.” The man grins, arching a brow.

“I don’t think so.” A cold, flat voice says lowly.

Brendon smiles wide as he catches sight of Ryan over the other man’s shoulder; he’s got two bright blue boxes in his arms with little characters drawn on them in his arms and strangely, his eyes are blazing with a cold fury Brendon can’t discern the origin of.

The man in front of him turns around, eyes widening a fraction before narrowing darkly. “And you are?”

Brendon can see Ryan’s jaw clench, a muscle in his cheek jumping. “The guy who’s telling you to go find someone else to harass; he’s not going anywhere with you.”

Brendon’s eyes flick back and forth between Ryan and the other human, brow slightly furrowed. Why does Ryan look so completely livid?

There’s a beat of silence, but the other man shakes his head and shoves his hands into the pockets of his too-tight pants that Brendon now knows to be jeans. “Whatever, he’s not even that hot anyways,” he grumbles before trudging off.

Brendon’s not sure how the human could tell his temperature just by looking at him, but Ryan’s gentle hand on his shoulder whisks him away from his confusion.

“Are you okay?” Ryan asks.

Brendon nods and offers a reassuring smile, pressing his hand over Ryan’s.

“Good,” Ryan mumbles, turning to push their basket forward. He begins to remove all of their items from it and places them on a rubber tabletop.

Brendon’s eyes widen as the items move away of their own accord, but Ryan seems unconcerned and still vaguely upset, so Brendon doesn’t raise any alarm. He does, however, make a small commotion when a young girl with her hair tied up high on her head scoops up his puffs and slides them across a glass surface before tossing them into one of those wretched plastic sacks. He yanks on the hem of Ryan’s shirt desperately, pointing to the growing number of bags filled with their things.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Ryan soothes, prying Brendon’s fingers from his shirt. “After we pay we can take them home.”

Brendon bites his lip. He doesn’t trust anyone who uses those Moonforesaken turtle-killers so freely.

“Look, see? She’s taking her stuff with her,” Ryan says, pointing to the human woman in front of them who is now pushing her cart full of packed bags towards the moving doors. Her baby sucks on her own fist happily.

Brendon’s anxious expression melts into a wistful smile. He doesn’t even notice Ryan pack up their own basket with the sacks full of food, but after a minute he’s being lead out of the store with a gentle hand on the back of his neck, too busy watching the precious human fledgling who is now shaking her fists at her mother and babbling enthusiastically.

Brendon also doesn’t notice that Ryan has stopped; he continues watching as if in a haze, the loud blaring of a car horn to his right not quite reaching his ears. Vaguely, he is aware of some shouting behind him, but it isn’t until a firm hand on the back of his shirt yanks him back that he comes to his senses just in time to see a giant black car whiz by him, barreling through the spot he was standing in only seconds ago.

“Are you _insane?_ ” Ryan cries, twisting Brendon around so they’re facing each other. “Didn’t you hear me shouting?!” Ryan asks, shaking Brendon slightly. “You could have been killed!”

Brendon stares up at him with wide eyes that are just beginning to burn and slightly parted lips; he nearly died because he couldn’t stop looking at the fledgling and now Ryan must think he’s some kind of Moonstruck fool.

Ryan blinks. “H-hey. Hey, don’t cry, don’t—don’t—I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have yelled, I just got scared is all.”

Swallowing hard, Brendon launches himself forward to wrap his arms around Ryan’s middle. He buries his face in Ryan’s chest, wishing there was a way to get across that he never meant to scare Ryan, never meant to make him fear that Brendon was in danger.

“It’s okay, you’re okay. It wasn’t your fault, he shouldn’t have been going that fast anyways,” Ryan’s voice sounds half surprised and half comforting as his hand rubs gently up and down Brendon’s back.

Brendon pulls back, nodding; he’s never seen anything move so fast in his life, not even the one time he caught sight of a sailfish darting by. It feels as if an entire cargo ship lifts off of his chest at Ryan’s assurement that he doesn’t blame him.

“I guess you couldn’t have known I was shouting at you anyways, huh?” Ryan says, tilting his head and squinting up at the Sun for a moment. “I don’t know your name.”

Brendon’s jaw drops as realization floods over him. Ryan doesn’t know his _name_. How are they supposed to fall in love and live happily ever after if Ryan doesn’t even know his drowning _name_?

“I’ll have to call you something,” Ryan says, head twisting left and right before he tugs Brendon out towards the car, pushing the basket in front of them. “I don’t suppose you could spell it for me?”

Brendon sighs. He could of course; he can write very well when he isn’t rushing, however, he has no doubt that Ryan wouldn’t recognize his alphabet if it were a blue whale swimming right toward him.

“I didn’t think so.” Ryan shrugs. “That’s okay, we can just make one for you for now. Is that okay?”

Brendon can’t help but gape at Ryan, eyes wide. A name is something important, something _intimate_ ; you don’t just go around naming anyone. Brendon supposes, though, that since Ryan doesn’t know his real name yet it only makes sense for his future True Love to be the one to give him one for the time being. He takes a breath and nods, biting back a wide smile.

“Yeah?” Ryan smiles too. “Okay, lemme think on it.”

As they reach the car, Brendon remembers the round black object and keys in his pocket. Fishing them out carefully, he proudly offers them to Ryan.

“Hey, you kept them safe.” Ryan grins. “Thank you.” He presses the black oval and the car beeps again, but Brendon doesn’t jerk. “Let’s just put these in the back, okay?” Ryan says, pulling one of the rear doors open and beginning to deposit the sacks full of their groceries in the backseat.

Brendon grabs one to help, but the feeling of slick plastic against his skin makes him think of suffocating sea creatures and his stomach churns. Without thinking, he dumps the items out of the bag and onto the floor of the car.

“What the fu—what are you doing?” Ryan cries, running over. He’s got his hands raised like he expects Brendon to continue flinging groceries about and is entirely ready to catch them if need be.

Brendon looks up, eyes pleading as he offers up the plastic sack to Ryan.

“What, you wanna keep it?” Ryan asks. “You can have all of them if you want, just as soon as we get home and unpack, okay?”

Brendon’s eyes widen, horrified, and he shakes his head, pulling hard at either ends of the sack until it rips in half. He glares at the pieces through blurred, hot vision.

“You don’t like it, the plastic?” Ryan tries instead.

Brendon attempts to hurl the tattered remains away, but they just float through the air gently before landing safely on the ground where Ryan retrieves them.

“Okay, we don’t, uh, we don’t have to use these anymore, alright? I’ll get some reusable bags, they’re cloth. Is that better?” Ryan asks, biting his lip and tugging lightly at it.

Brendon nods, smiling gratefully.

“I’m gonna put the rest of these in the car, okay? Why don’t you go sit up front,” Ryan murmurs, shoving the torn pieces of plastic into his pocket.

Brendon nods and turns to go when a small, buzzing piece of soft lands on his nose. He blinks, eyes crossing as he tries to make out what’s tickling his skin, but all he can make out is tufts of yellow and black.

Ryan laughs. “It’s only a bee, don’t worry. It’ll fly off in a second, just stay still.”

Brendon smiles wide as the bee crawls over his nose before fluttering off with more buzzing, disappearing from view.

“You really like nature, huh?” Ryan asks, still smiling. “That’s why you don’t like those plastic bags, right?”

Brendon shifts from one foot to the other, nodding. He could never be ashamed for his fierce love of the ocean and his wish to protect its life, but it’s fairly easy to be embarrassed at his display towards those horrible weapons.

“That’s nice, not a lot of people care about that sort of thing anymore,” Ryan says, causing Brendon to look up in surprise.

His heart skips a beat and he offers a quick, silent prayer to the Moon to forever watch over the human that is Ryan Ross, even if he doesn’t end up falling in love with Brendon.

“You know, you’re kind of like a bee, bumbling around, trying to find your way,” Ryan notes.

Brendon grins. The bee was cute and soft, maybe that means Ryan thinks he’s cute and soft?

“You like that bee?” Ryan asks. “I could call you B, if you want; B, like Z.”

Brendon blinks and quickly begins hopping up and down, clapping his hands. Ryan won’t be able to help thinking of him as cute and soft if he’s always calling Brendon something cute and soft, it’s absolutely perfect.

Ryan laughs again, this time louder, and it’s the most beautiful thing Brendon’s ever heard.

“Okay, B it is. Come on then, B. Let’s go home.”


End file.
